European Integration Beyond Brussels: Unity in East and West Europe Since 1945 9783030454449

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Recasting the History and Politics of European Integration ‘Beyond Brussels’
Widening the Scope of EC/EU Integration History
European Integration Beyond the EU
Structure of the Book
Part I: Pan-European Ideas, Structures and Interactions
Chapter 2: ‘Integration, Nobody Knows What It Means’: European Cooperation and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), 1947–56
The UNECE: A Cold War Technical Agency
UN Universalism and European Regionalism
The UNECE and Subregional Organisations
The UNECE and the ‘Hidden Integration’ of Europe
The UNECE and East-West Cooperation
Conclusions
Chapter 3: Inventing a ‘European Space of Discussions’: The UEFA-EBU Relationship, c.1950s–1970s
Two Europes, One Similar Goal?
Establishing European Exchanges
ECCC Final: The Most Important European Event?
Conclusion: Studying the ‘Space of Inter-European Relations’
Chapter 4: Mediating in the Cold War: How the Socialist Group of MEPs Became a Driver of Brussels-Moscow Rapprochement
The EP and the EC-Soviet Relationship During Perestroika
Preparing the Delegation
Moscow and Its Short-Term Impact
Long-Term Implications?
Conclusions
Chapter 5: Environmental Security for the Promotion of Pan-European Integration: The OSCE as a ‘Europeanising Actor’ in the Balkans
The OSCE, European Integration and Europeanisation
The OSCE in Post-Conflict Western Balkans
The OSCE Approach to Environmental Security
The OSCE in the Environment and Security Initiative
Aarhus Centres: An OSCE Flagship for Environmental Security and Democracy
Conclusions
Part II: Imagining, Negotiating and Building Regional Integration
Chapter 6: Not Giving Up Sovereignty: The British Labour Party’s Alternative Vision of International Cooperation, 1933–1951
International Socialist Cooperation
Estrangement from Continental Socialists
From Old Arguments to New Debates
Conclusions
Chapter 7: Less than Membership but More than Association: Establishing the European Economic Area, 1989–1993
Jacques Delors and the Idea of a ‘Third Way’
Hopes and Cracks in the EFTA Camp
A Successful Treaty?
Chapter 8: Regional Integration in the Eastern Bloc: Energy Cooperation Between CMEA Countries, c.1950s–80s
The Cold War and the Establishment of the CMEA
The Energy Sector as a Main Field of Activity
Intra-bloc Energy Trade and the Global Oil Crises
Conclusions
Chapter 9: Industrial Policy and Technological Cooperation in the EAEU: The Case of Eurasian Technology Platforms
What Explains the EAEU?
Towards a New Approach to Eurasian Integration
ETPs as a Case Study of Technological Cooperation in the EAEU
The Importance of European and Russian Precedents in the Creation of ETPs
Industrial Cooperation in the EAEU: The Legal and Institutional Framework
Conclusions
Part III: European Integration At and Around the Subregional Level
Chapter 10: Uniting Europe from Afar: Exile Plans for a Central European Federation in the Cold War
Liberation and Unification: The Origins of Central and Eastern European Cooperation
‘You’ve Got to Fight for Your Right to Party’
Regions Within and Versus Europe
The West: And the Rest
The Final Divide
Conclusions: Disunity in Unification
Chapter 11: Remain or Leave? Britain and the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) in the Context of Brexit
A Brief Account of the Origins of the ELDO
The Turning Point: December 1965 to July 1966
The US Steps in, the British Cabinet Confirms Its Decision to Leave: And Then Changes Its Mind at the Last Minute
Conclusion: Britain’s Leaving the ELDO and Its Leaving the EU
Chapter 12: Subregional Integration in East Central Europe: Strategies in the In-Between Sphere
The Power of Historical Experience
The Role of Parallel Subregional Organisations in European Integration
Divide et impera: EU’s Stand on the V4
Streamlining Cooperation Within the EU
Conclusions
Chapter 13: Subregional Groupings in Post-Communist Europe: More Than Just ‘Cooperation’?
Subregional Initiatives in Europe
Subregionalism and European Integration
Visegrad Cooperation: Within and Beyond the EU?
Internal and Externally Focused Cooperation Via the International Visegrad Fund
Visegrad Plus
Visegrad Defence Cooperation
Conclusions
Part IV: European Integration: Past and Future, East and West, Brussels and Beyond
Chapter 14: Conclusions
Index

Citation preview

SECURITY, CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

European Integration Beyond Brussels Unity in East and West Europe since 1945 Edited by

mat thew broad suvi k ansik a s

Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World Series Editors Effie G. H. Pedaliu LSE Ideas London, UK John W. Young University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK

The Palgrave Macmillan series, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World aims to make a significant contribution to academic and policy debates on cooperation, conflict and security since 1900. It evolved from the series Global Conflict and Security edited by Professor Saki Ruth Dockrill. The current series welcomes proposals that offer innovative historical perspectives, based on archival evidence and promoting an empirical understanding of economic and political cooperation, conflict and security, peace-making, diplomacy, humanitarian intervention, nation-­ building, intelligence, terrorism, the influence of ideology and religion on international relations, as well as the work of international organisations and non-governmental organisations. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14489

Matthew Broad  •  Suvi Kansikas Editors

European Integration Beyond Brussels Unity in East and West Europe Since 1945

Editors Matthew Broad Institute for History Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands

Suvi Kansikas Centre for European Studies University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland

Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World ISBN 978-3-030-45444-9    ISBN 978-3-030-45445-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: ©Fleyeing - Can Stock Photo Inc. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This collection emerged out of a two-day conference held at the University of Helsinki back in October 2017. The conference would have not been possible without the financial support of either the European Commission as part of a larger project funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Marie Skłodowska-­ Curie grant agreement no. 658375 or the Academy of Finland under grant no 295567. Nor would it have taken place without the generosity of Helsinki’s Centre for European Studies. We would therefore like to thank all these institutions for their assistance and the latter also for the kind hospitality during a (mercifully) mild Finnish autumn. Various scholars and policy experts contributed to the intellectual content of the conference itself. We are particularly grateful to all the paper-givers, Juhana Aunesluoma and Linda Risso for their unending encouragement and advice and those who lent their considerable insights and wisdom without providing a paper, notably Juha Jokela, Hanna Ojanen, Marja-Leena Vuorenpää and Anneli Puura-Märkälä. We want to thank the editors of the Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World series, John W.  Young and Effie G.H.  Pedaliu, for having faith in the project. At Palgrave Macmillan, Molly Beck and Maeve Sinnott also proved a constant source of help and guidance. On a personal note, we would like to thank Ezequiel Gonzalez Ocantos and Mikael Forsström, each of whom throughout has acted as a solid source of inspiration and reassurance. Leiden and Helsinki October 2019

M B and S K v

Contents

1 Recasting the History and Politics of European Integration ‘Beyond Brussels’  1 Matthew Broad and Suvi Kansikas Part I Pan-European Ideas, Structures and Interactions  23 2 ‘Integration, Nobody Knows What It Means’: European Cooperation and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), 1947–56 25 Daniel Stinsky 3 Inventing a ‘European Space of Discussions’: The UEFA-­ EBU Relationship, c.1950s–1970s 49 Philippe Vonnard 4 Mediating in the Cold War: How the Socialist Group of MEPs Became a Driver of Brussels-Moscow Rapprochement 71 Alexandra Athanasopoulou Köpping 5 Environmental Security for the Promotion of Pan-­ European Integration: The OSCE as a ‘Europeanising Actor’ in the Balkans 93 Emma Hakala vii

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Contents

Part II Imagining, Negotiating and Building Regional Integration 115 6 Not Giving Up Sovereignty: The British Labour Party’s Alternative Vision of International Cooperation, 1933–1951117 Ettore Costa 7 Less than Membership but More than Association: Establishing the European Economic Area, 1989–1993141 Juhana Aunesluoma 8 Regional Integration in the Eastern Bloc: Energy Cooperation Between CMEA Countries, c.1950s–80s169 Falk Flade 9 Industrial Policy and Technological Cooperation in the EAEU: The Case of Eurasian Technology Platforms191 Anna Lowry Part III European Integration At and Around the Subregional Level 219 10 Uniting Europe from Afar: Exile Plans for a Central European Federation in the Cold War221 Pauli Heikkilä 11 Remain or Leave? Britain and the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) in the Context of Brexit247 John Krige 12 Subregional Integration in East Central Europe: Strategies in the In-Between Sphere269 Katalin Miklóssy

 Contents 

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13 Subregional Groupings in Post-Communist Europe: More Than Just ‘Cooperation’?291 Martin Dangerfield Part IV European Integration: Past and Future, East and West, Brussels and Beyond 313 14 Conclusions315 Anne Deighton Index323

Notes on Contributors

Juhana Aunesluoma  is the Director of the Centre for European Studies and Vice-Dean of International Affairs and Public Engagement in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. He teaches and has written extensively on contemporary European and international history, with a particular emphasis on recent events in European societies, politics and integration and post-1945 developments in European security, trade and institutions. Matthew Broad  is Lecturer in History of International Relations at the Institute for History, Leiden University, Netherlands. His research interests lie in the history of European integration, diplomacy, British foreign policy, Anglo-Nordic relations and the Cold War. His first monograph Harold Wilson, Denmark and the Making of Labour European Policy, 1958–72 was published in 2017. Ettore  Costa  is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He received his PhD from La Sapienza University of Rome during which he was a visiting scholar at the University of Exeter, UK.  His research applies a comparative and transnational approach to the study of European political history, the political use of culture and the relationship between North and South Europe. These themes formed the basis of his first book, The Labour Party, Denis Healey and the International Socialist Movement: Rebuilding the Socialist International During the Cold War 1945–1951 (2018).

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Notes on Contributors

Martin  Dangerfield is Professor of European Integration and Jean Monnet Chair in the European Integration of Central and East Europe, University of Wolverhampton, UK. Research interests include subregional cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe, EU-Russia relations, EU enlargement and the European Neighbourhood Policy. Recent publications have focused on various issues including Visegrad cooperation, ‘new’ EU member states’ economic relations with Russia and links between subregionalism and macro-regionalism in Europe. He is also an expert evaluator for various European Commission educational and research funding programmes. Anne Deighton  is Emeritus Professor of European International Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations  and fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford, UK.  She is internationally recognised for her teaching and research expertise in the Cold War, the historical development of European integration, post-Cold War security and British foreign policy. Among her numerous awards and achievements, she has sat on scientific committees in Paris, Oslo, Copenhagen, Geneva and throughout Britain and in 2017 was appointed to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Falk Flade  is an academic researcher at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt, Oder, Germany. He received his PhD with a dissertation on energy infrastructures in the Eastern bloc. Current fields of research are the history of economy and technology, communist studies and Central and Eastern European history. Since 2018 he has been working on the project ‘Modernization Blockades in Science and Economy of the GDR and Poland’. Emma  Hakala is a visiting senior fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), Finland. She received her Doctorate in Political History from the University of Helsinki in 2019. This examined the concept of environmental security in the work of international organisations in post-conflict Western Balkans. Her research interests focus on environmental security and the geopolitics of climate change. She is a member of the BIOS Research Unit, which studies the effects of environmental and resource factors on the Finnish society. Pauli Heikkilä  is a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He received his PhD from the University of Turku in 2011 and has since held positions at the University of Tartu and University College London

  Notes on Contributors 

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(UCL). His interests concentrate on the international cooperation of Eastern European emigrants during the Cold War. The extended version of his doctoral thesis, Estonians for Europe: National Activism for European Integration (1922–1991), was published in 2014, and he is finishing his second monograph on Finnish discussions on European unification. Suvi  Kansikas is a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where she recently received the title of docent in Political History and held an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Fellowship examining the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Her research interests include the long history of EU-Russia relations and the Soviet bloc’s economic organisation: the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). Recent publications have focused on the political economy of the socialist bloc, the role of the CMEA in the Cold War, Russian memory politics, Finnish integration history and Finnish-Soviet trade. Her first book, Socialist Countries Face the European Community: Soviet-Bloc Controversies over East-West Trade, was published in 2014. Alexandra  Athanasopoulou  Köpping recently completed her PhD from the Global and European Studies Institute, University of Leipzig, Germany, funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Her dissertation explored the role of the European Parliament in European Union foreign policy. Before that, she studied in Brussels, Manchester and Maastricht and has worked in the European Parliament and as a consultant in Brussels. During her doctoral studies she developed an affinity for bridging academic research with policymaking, developing a workshop on policy writing for doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars. She is working as a project manager for Interreg Europe focusing on mobility in urban regions. John Krige  is Kranzberg Professor at the School of History, Technology and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. An authority on the history of science and technology, his interests have expanded beyond the study of international organisations in Western Europe— which included being a member of the team writing the history of  the  European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)—to include an analysis of US-European relations during the Cold War. A recipient of several awards, his most recent publications include How Knowledge Moves: Writing the Transnational History of Science and

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Notes on Contributors

Technology (2019) and Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Europe: US Technological Collaboration and Nonproliferation (2016). Anna  Lowry  is a postdoctoral researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland. She joined the institute in 2015 as a fellow in the cluster ‘Diversification of the Economy’, part of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies. She has written on a range of topics dealing with the political economy of Russia and Eurasia and, most recently, Russia’s development strategy, digital economy and industrial policy. Katalin  Miklóssy is the head of Eastern European Studies at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland. She focuses on systemic change and democratisation from a comparative political history perspective, with special focus on in-between regional development and East-West interaction. Recent publications include several co-authored and co-edited volumes and a special issue for Journal of Contemporary European Studies entitled ‘Erosion of the Rule of Law in East Central Europe’ (2018). Miklóssy regularly comments on Eastern European politics in Finnish and Central European media. Daniel Stinsky  recently completed his PhD from the History Department of Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Netherlands. His thesis, supervised by Professor Kiran K.  Patel, studied the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) as a hitherto under-researched player in post-1945 European and international politics. He is an attaché based at the Federal German Foreign Office in Berlin. Philippe Vonnard  is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Senior Research Fellow at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, co-director of its Centre of International History and Political Studies of Globalization and an associate fellow of the Deutsche Sporthochschule in Cologne, Germany. His research focuses on the international history of sports and European cooperation. He has written several articles and books on this theme, including Building Europe with the Ball (2016), Beyond Boycotts: Sport During the Cold War in Europe (2017) and L’Europe dans le monde du football (2018). He is a member of Réseaux d’études des relations internationales sportives (RERIS) (www.reris.net).

Abbreviations

ACEN AII ASEAN BArch BEAC BFTA BSEC CBSS CDO CDUCE CEE CEFTA CEI CFSP CIA CLE CMEA Comintern Comisco CPSU CSCE CSDP DPD EAEU EaP EBU EC

Assembly of Captive European Nations Adriatic-Ionian Initiative Association of Southeast Asian Nations Federal Archive, Berlin Barents Euro-Arctic Council Baltic Free Trade Area Black Sea Economic Cooperation Council of the Baltic Sea States Central Dispatching Organisation Christian Democrat Union of Central Europe Central and Eastern Europe Central European Free Trade Agreement Central European Initiative Common Foreign and Security Policy Central Intelligence Agency Committee of Liberal Exiles Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Communist International Committee of the International Socialist Conference Common Party of the Soviet Union Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Common Security and Defence Policy Visegrad 4 Defence Policy Directors Eurasian Economic Union Eastern Partnership European Broadcasting Union European Community xv

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ABBREVIATIONS

ECA ECCC ECE ECJ ECO ECOSOC ECSC ECU ECWC EDA EEA EEC EFTA EIDHR ELDO EM EMU ENVSEC EP EPP ESA ETP EU Euratom EUREC FEC FIFA GARF GDP GDR HAEU IAR IDP IO IPD IPU IRF ITC IVF LBJL LI LSI

European Cooperation Administration European Champions Clubs’ Cup East Central European Court of Justice of the European Union European Coal Organisation United Nations Economic and Social Council European Coal and Steel Community European Currency Unit European Cup Winners’ Cup European Defence Agency European Economic Area European Economic Community European Free Trade Association European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights European Launcher Development Organisation European Movement European and Monetary Union Environment and Security Initiative European Parliament European People’s Party European Space Agency Eurasian technology platforms European Union European Atomic Energy Community Eurasian Economic Commission Free Europe Committee Fédération Internationale de Football Association State Archive of the Russian Federation Gross domestic product German Democratic Republic Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence International Authority for the Ruhr Innovation development programme International organisation(s) Interparliamentary delegation International Peasant Union International Road Federation Inland Transport Committee International Visegrad Fund Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas Liberal International Labour and Socialist International

 ABBREVIATIONS 

MEP NASA NATO NB8 NGO NPP OECD OEEC OSCE PESCO PG PHARE PSOE R&D RCC RGAE RTP SEA SES SFIO SILO SOE SPD SUCEE TIR

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Member of the European Parliament National Aeronautics and Space Administration North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nordic-Baltic Eight Non-governmental organisation Nuclear power plants Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Organisation for European Economic Cooperation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Permanent Structured Cooperation Visegrad 4 Planning Group Pologne-Hongrois Action pour la Reconstruction Economic Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Research and development Regional Cooperation Council Russian State Archive of the Economy Russian technology platforms Single European Act Single Economic Space French Section of the Workers’ International Socialist Information and Liaison Office State-owned enterprises Social Democratic Party of Germany Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe International Road Transport (Transports Internationaux Routiers) TNA The National Archives, Kew, London TP Technology platform UCPTE Union for the Coordination of Production and Transmission of Electricity UEFA Union of European Football Associations UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa UNECAFE United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNECLA United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean UNECWA United Nations Economic Commission for West Asia UNEP United Nations Environment Programme UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

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Abbreviations

UNRRA US USSR V4 V4+ V4EaP V4EUBG V4PG VG WEU WTO

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration United States Union of Soviet Socialist Republics/Soviet Union Visegrad 4 Visegrad Plus Visegrad 4 Eastern Partnership Visegrad 4 European Union Battlegroup Visegrad 4 Planning Group Visegrad Group Western European Union World Trade Organization

List of Tables

Table 9.1 Table 9.2

Relationship between Eurasian and Russian technology platforms208 Eurasian technology platforms 213

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CHAPTER 1

Recasting the History and Politics of European Integration ‘Beyond Brussels’ Matthew Broad and Suvi Kansikas

Europe is a continent whose history has, in one form or another, long been dominated by integration. In the era of the nation state this was arguably first detectable in the early 1800s with the French-led Continental System which, somewhat prophetically in the context of Brexit, brought together much of mainland Europe in a trade war against the United Kingdom.1 In time this episode would itself spawn the creation of the Concert of Europe, an ambitious mid-nineteenth-century dispute resolution system founded by the region’s then-dominant powers Austria,

 For the latest research on the Continental System, Katherine B. Aaslestad and Johan Joor (eds.), Revisiting Napoleon’s Continental System: Local, Regional and European Experiences (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 1

M. Broad (*) Institute for History, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] S. Kansikas Centre for European Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_1

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Russia, France, Prussia and Britain.2 Naturally, though, one need not travel as far back as Napoleon I to find examples of European states uniting or collaborating more closely with one another. From at least the mid-­ nineteenth century there emerged numerous initiatives to help solve the problems of, and set standards for, the technological revolution of the Victorian era.3 This same period also witnessed a proliferation of literary works promoting the broader ideals of European unity.4 Victor Hugo for one was consistent in his support of economic and political unification, building on the letters of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the essays of William Penn.5 Later on, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi’s analogous quest for a unified European state became the basis of the Paneuropean Movement formed in 1923.6 Having witnessed the horrors of the First World War, Arthur Salter’s The United States of Europe appealed for European countries to merge under the watch of a centralised technocratic government.7 And many of these same sentiments resurfaced in the speeches and writings, if not always the deeds, of twentieth-century

2  See Paul W.  Schroeder, ‘The 19th Century International System: Changes in the Structure’, World Politics 39, no. 1 (1986): 1–26. 3  For a broad overview, Thomas J. Misa and Johan Schot, ‘Inventing Europe: Technology and the Hidden Integration of Europe’, History and Technology 21, no. 1 (2005): 1–19; Jytte Klausen and Louise Tilly (eds.), European Integration in Social and Historical Perspective: 1850 to the Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997); Sidney Pollard, The Integration of the European Economy Since 1815 (London: Routledge, 2013). For specific examples, Carl Strikwerda, ‘The Troubled Origins of European Economic Integration: International Iron and Steel and Labor Migration in the Era of World War I’, American Historical Review 98, no. 4 (1993): 1106–29; Wolfram Kaiser and Johan Schot (eds.), Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels and International Organizations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 4  Derek B.  Heater, The Idea of European Unity (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992); Roy H. Ginsberg, Demystifying the European Union: The Enduring Logic of Regional Integration (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010); Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 5  Angelo Metzidakis, ‘Victor Hugo and the Idea of the United States of Europe’, Nineteenth-Century French Studies 23, nos. 1/2 (1994–95): 72–84. 6  See Patricia Wiedemer, ‘The Idea Behind Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-European Union’, History of European Ideas 16, nos. 4–6 (1993): 827–33. On other intellectuals in this period see Mark Hewitson and Matthew D’Auria (eds.), Europe in Crisis: Intellectuals and the European Idea 1917–1957 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012). 7  Arthur Salter, The United States of Europe and Other Papers (London: Allen and Unwin, 1933).

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political heavyweights like Aristide Briand, John Maynard Keynes, Jean Monnet and Winston Churchill. It took the full horrors of the Second World War, however, and thereafter the challenges generated by the nascent Cold War divide, to bring about sufficient pressure to formalise these integrationist trends on a widespread scale.8 A host of institutions and schemes soon sprung up designed to bring together European states in a bid to serve a multitude of economic, political, cultural and technical needs. For sure, many of these were Western in outlook. Amid mounting fears of communist expansion, for instance, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) sought to encourage intra-Western European trade. The Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO) and subsequently the Western European Union (WEU), as with the wider North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), added a military edge to this economic cooperation. The Council of Europe was formed in 1949 to promote human rights and democracy, while the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) emerged in 1950 as a cultural basis for collaboration. Other regions of Europe were not immune, however. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) was to the Eastern bloc what the OEEC was to Western Europe. The Warsaw Pact offered a neat counterbalance to the WEU/NATO. By contrast, both the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and Conference on (later Organization for) Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE) drew members from both sides of the Iron Curtain. The fall of the Berlin Wall then ushered in a number of new alliances created by former Soviet satellites. The Central European Visegrad Group (V4) of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, like the Baltic Assembly members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, certainly showed themselves keen to foster subregional unity, evoking similarities with associations like the Benelux Union established in 1944 and the Nordic Council founded in 1952. Even today the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) stands as an example of supranational European cooperation concentrated closer to the Pacific rather than Atlantic Ocean. Given all this, it is perhaps a little surprising that the majority of writing on European integration history since the start of this century has focused almost exclusively on the evolution of one particular, and until recently geographically quite narrow organisation: the European Union (EU). Key 8  For debates on exactly how this happened, Wolfram Kaiser and Antonio Varsori (eds.), European Union History: Themes and Debates (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

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debates in the literature have hence tended to centre on the diverse national interests which in 1950 drove just six Western European countries to negotiate what became the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and, some seven years later, create the European Economic Community (EEC) and European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom)—consolidated in 1967 in the European Communities (EC)— and thereafter the various internal and external battles fought to reform and expand that same organisation into one which until 2004 was still only a club of 15 mostly small West European states.9 This picture may well have broadened in more recent years. We now have for instance a much better idea of the ways non-state actors like political parties and interest groups—often acting transnationally across national boundaries— were instrumental to and ultimately helped shape today’s EU political system.10 We also have a much greater sense of the institutional dimension of the EU, thanks in part to official histories sanctioned by the European Commission and the European Parliament (EP).11 And there has likewise been a welcome recent shift in favour of studying the emergence of some of the most important early common policies pursued by EU states,

9  On the issue of small states see Baldur Thorhallsson and Anders Wivel, ‘Small States in the European Union: What Do We Know and What Would We Like to Know?’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 19, no. 4 (2006): 651–68. The original six were France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. 10  See for example Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen (eds.), The History of the European Union: Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950–72 (London: Routledge, 2009); Wolfram Kaiser and Jan-Henrik Meyer (eds.), Societal Actors in European Integration: Polity-Building and Policy-Making 1958–1992 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 11  Michel Dumoulin, Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, and European Commission, The European Commission, 1958–72: History and Memories (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2007); Éric Bussière, et  al., The European Commission 1973–86: History and Memory (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2014); European University Institute, Building Parliament: 50  Years of European Parliament History, 1958–2008 (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009). As far as supranational accounts of the early EU go, the best remain N. Piers Ludlow, Dealing with Britain: The Six and the First UK Application to the EEC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); N. Piers Ludlow, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist Challenge (London: Routledge, 2006).

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including in the realm of agriculture, social welfare and competition.12 But the starting point nevertheless remains stubbornly EU-centric. Against this backdrop, this edited collection, and the conference at the University of Helsinki upon which it is based, is designed as an exercise in looking beyond the EU and investigating in depth some of the various European structures which developed before and in parallel to it. Our participants, as with the chapters included in this volume, were driven by four overriding principles. First was the desire to expose those other forms of European unity which clearly existed, and continue to do so, but have been generally sidelined by scholars. These include not only the various international organisations (IOs) mentioned above but various types of formal and informal cooperation like transnational party networks, cultural federations and trade and economic agreements.13 Each in their own way has done much to enhance the unity and cohesion of particular concoctions of European states around a specific goal. Seldom have these different forms of collaboration been given the detailed academic treatment within the literature on European integration that they deserve. Important exceptions do of course exist. Most notable are those works produced in the 1990s as part of the Europe-wide Identités européennes or ‘European identity’ research project—led by Robert Frank and, before him, René Girault—which dwelt at length with several competitors of the early EU.14 That this trend has since stalled, though, perhaps means that it is time to shift our attention from the EU and assess—even if momentarily—once more both the origins and internal workings of other European actors and agents and,

12  Kiran Klaus Patel (ed.), Fertile Ground for Europe? The History of European Integration and the Common Agricultural Policy since 1945 (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2009); N.  Piers Ludlow, ‘The Making of the CAP: Towards a Historical Analysis of the EU’s First Major Common Policy’, Contemporary European History 14, no. 3 (2005): 347–71; Kiran Klaus Patel and Heike Schweitzer (eds.), The Historical Foundations of EU Competition Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 13  On the different ‘types’ of IOs see Graham Evans and Jeffrey Newnham, The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations (London: Penguin, 1998). 14  Examples include René Girault (ed.), Identité et conscience européennes au XXe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1994); Robert Frank (ed.), Les identités européennes au XXe siècle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004); Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, Wilfried Loth and Raymond Poidevin (eds.), Institutions européennes et identités europeennes (Brussels: Emile Bruylant, 1998); Anne Deighton, Building Postwar Europe: National Decision-Makers and European Institutions 1948–63 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995).

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more broadly, how they might have influenced the political and institutional landscape of modern Europe. A second characteristic binding the contributors to this volume was the sense that by concentrating so singly on the EC/EU framework we risk portraying it as the sole embodiment or inevitable outcome of European integration. It is not entirely uncommon to see the EU styled in the literature as the solitary success story of European cooperation.15 Nor is it altogether surprising to see the so-called ‘founding fathers’ like Jean Monnet and former French Prime Minister Robert Schuman described as architects not just of the European Union per se but ‘of the European integration project’ in its entirety.16 To be clear, the point we are making here should not be misinterpreted as EU-scepticism. Nor would we be so brash as to deny the sheer political, economic and cultural significance of the EU and its predecessors. On the contrary, by expanding the remit of European integration we can in fact help comprehend the environment in which the EU itself has emerged and better grasp the facets which make it so unique an organisation. At the same time, we want to emphasise that European integration, and indeed the very notion of Europe itself, is a contested one and that the values and goals of ever-closer union which have led to the creation of the European Union have not always been—and are unlikely in the future to be—universally embraced.17 Studying the diverse models of 15  For instance, a recent article by Manners and Murray details how the ‘European integration narrative’ is crucial for Europe and Europeans, but it continues to amplify the unproblematised link between Europe and the EU. See Ian Manners and Philomena Murray, ‘The End of a Noble Narrative? European Integration Narratives after the Nobel Peace Prize’, Journal of Common Market Studies 54, no. 1 (2015): 185–202. 16  See for instance European Commission, ‘Robert Schuman: The Architect of the European Integration Project’, available at https://europa.eu/european-union/sites/europaeu/files/robert_schuman_en.pdf (accessed 20 June 2018). 17  On Europe as a contested concept, Michael J.  Heffernan, The Meaning of Europe: Geography and Geopolitics (London and New York: Arnold, 1998); Evlyn Gould and George J.  Sheridan (eds.), Engaging Europe: Rethinking a Changing Continent (New York: Lexington, 2007); Zeynep Arkan, ‘Defining ‘Europe’ and ‘Europeans’: Constructing Identity in the Education Policy of the European Union,’ Federal Governance 10, no. 2 (2013): 35–46. On the universality (or otherwise) of ever closer union, Desmond Dinan, Neill Nugent and William E. Paterson (eds.), The European Union in Crisis (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Ann Katherine Isaacs, Ewald Hiebl and Luisa Trindade, Perspectives on European integration and European Union History (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2010); H.M.  Government, ‘Alternatives to Membership: Possible Models for the United Kingdom Outside the European Union’ (2016), available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/504604/

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European cooperation can consequently reveal much about the plural nature of European integration and the diverse ways of organising cooperation throughout the continent. A third, related strand that united us was the feeling that European integration was, and still is, an all-European affair but has rarely been treated as such. The countries of the Eastern bloc eagerly took part in the CSCE for instance.18 Some even chose to integrate into global trade regimes during the Cold War itself.19 Long before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet system, in other words, Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries experimented with integration.20 There was therefore logic to their decision to increase the pace and scope of such links in a post-Cold War setting. It is true of course that hopes of consolidating such historical ties were partly realised by the 2004 and 2007 waves of EU enlargement of which CEE states formed the bulk of the new intake. But as the above attests, these same countries have an ‘integrative experience’ well beyond their association with Brussels.21 To relate European integration equitably with the integration schemes first devised by the EU’s six founder members therefore risks overshadowing these experiences. Studying the formation and operation of the different examples of cooperation that emerged from behind the Iron Curtain

Alternatives_to_membership_-_possible_models_for_the_UK_outside_the_EU.pdf (accessed 20 June 2018). 18  Csaba Békés, ‘The Warsaw Pact and the CSCE Process from 1965 to 1979’, in Wilfred Wilfried and Georges-Henri Soutou (eds.), The Making of Détente: Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965–75 (London: Routledge, 2008), 201–19. 19  Leah A. Haus, Globalizing the GATT: The Soviet Union’s Successor States, Eastern Europe, and the International Trading System (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute, 1992). 20  There is currently a study on this subject underway at the European University Institute, Florence, led by Federico Romero and entitled ‘Looking West: The European socialist regimes facing pan-European cooperation and the European Community’. For more see Angela Romano, The European Community and Eastern Europe in the Cold War. Overcoming the East-West divide (London and New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2020). 21  Suvi Kansikas, ‘The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance: A Restricted Cold War Actor’, Comparativ 27, nos. 5–6 (2017): 84–100. We use ‘Brussels’ as a metonym to mean the current EU—parlance especially common in public, journalistic and political circles— given that it is considered the de facto capital of the Union. EU institutions are, however, seated in Frankfurt, Strasbourg and Luxembourg City, and EU agencies are spread across various member states.

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or that worked across it should consequently go some way to illuminating an otherwise hidden aspect of European integration.22 The final point that ought to be added to this list relates to the chronological dangers of likening EU integration to European integration more generally. More than a handful of authors have located the dawning of integration to 1949–50 when, confronted variously by the nascent Cold War, burgeoning coal shortages, and the perceived ineptitude of the intergovernmental Council of Europe, Monnet sketched the first blueprints for the ECSC with its centralised high authority and embryonic incarnations of the EP, European Council and European Court of Justice.23 Others did not hesitate to mark the golden jubilee of the signing of the Treaty of Rome by talking of ‘50 years of European integration’, thereby homing in on 1957 as the genesis of the integration process.24 Meanwhile, it has become all too common an occurrence to tell of how European integration was frustrated in the 1960s—thanks not least to the Machiavellian mischief of French President Charles de Gaulle—and thereafter almost terminated in the 1970s and 1980s, only to be revived in the mid- to late 1980s with the transformation of the EEC into the EU—all but ignoring many contemporaneous efforts to unite various European states and peoples.25 And even in more recent times, Brexit has inevitably led to doom-­ mongers pronouncing the ‘end of European integration’ as we know it.26 The problem, as is well known, is that this narrative, even if a somewhat extreme characterisation, remains at best simple and at worse misleading.27 For plenty of forms of European integration thrived both before and during these periods of history. That the creation of the Council of Europe— an organisation which gave the EU its flag and anthem—predates the EEC by nearly a decade alone suggests that European integration ought

22  We appreciate the work done by historians of technology on shining a light on other forms of hidden integration such as unification through infrastructure, for instance Misa and Schot, ‘Inventing Europe’. 23  Mark Gilbert, ‘Narrating the Process: Questioning the Progressive Story of European Integration’, Journal of Common Market Studies 46, no. 3 (2008): 641–62. 24  Ibid. 25  Desmond Dinan, Europe Recast: A History of European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2004). 26  Frank Schimmelfennig, ‘Brexit: Differentiated Disintegration in the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy 25, no. 8 (2018), 1154–73. 27  Gilbert, ‘Narrating the Process’.

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not to be confined to the birth of the present-day EU.28 Likewise, the formation of the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1975 offers an example of ‘successful’ integration that defies the oft-described picture of ‘crisis’ or ‘stagnation’ that we have become used to. European integration, in short, did not start in 1950; nor did it languish at key moments over the following decades. To that end, changes to the institutional makeup of the EU are unlikely to spell its end. All told, then, this volume has four main goals. First and foremost it is a study of some of the numerous but sometimes still overlooked structures that have contributed to the unity of modern Europe. Second, the book is an attempt to understand and analyse the formation and evolution of these structures as important—though not always successful—forums in their own right, often with distinct, though no less valid, visions of how cooperation between European states ought to proceed. Third, the volume hopes to capture quite how much European integration has always been, and continues to be, a pan-European rather than exclusively West European affair. And last, it aims to complement those scholars who have already set about lengthening the trajectory and chronology of the integration process beyond the six decades that the EU has existed.

Widening the Scope of EC/EU Integration History As we have already intimated, research within the field of European integration history, which has primarily been focused on EU history, has in the last decade or so advanced in terms of the scope, methodologies, frameworks as well as research objects.29 The list of actors and institutions put under the scholarly microscope hence now include both supranational and non-state actors; the methodological scope goes beyond the earlier focus on diplomatic and economic history to include organisational and institutional history; and researchers have gradually included in their enquiries various policy fields and the role of EU law. In line with the cultural and transnational turns, the field is increasingly interested in perceptions, 28  Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘Provincialising European union: Co-operation and Integration in Europe in a Historical Perspective’, Contemporary European History 22, no. 4 (2013): 649–73. 29  Kaiser and Varsori (eds.), European Union History; Laurent Warlouzet, ‘European Integration History: Beyond the Crisis’, Politique européenne, 44 no. 2, (2014): I–XXV; Wilfried Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification (Berlin: De Gruyter 2015); Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘Widening and Deepening? Recent Advances in European Integration History’, Neue Polit. Lit. 64, (2019): 327–57.

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i­dentity, narratives and images of Europe. Thus, the field has developed to a stage where it can be considered mature and flourishing. Laurent Warlouzet even suggests that the widening of the field has reached a stage where it could be labelled more generically as European cooperation within which the study of the EC/EU would be just one subfield.30 Among the demands to enhance the scope of integration studies is the need to study the EU’s relations with and contacts to the outside world. During its first decades, the history of the EU was studied as if it were isolated from other events that dominated the international history of the twentieth century and processes such as the Cold War.31 This led to a situation in which the EC/EU was examined without paying due attention to the bidirectional flows of influence between it and other actors that exist on its periphery. Fortunately, this approach has now started to be challenged. Recently, we have witnessed a call put forward by leading scholars of contemporary Europe to ‘provincialise’ or somehow ‘de-centre’ the EU from the broader tale of European integration.32 Kiran Klaus Patel, in his path-­breaking 2013 article ‘Provincialising European union’, began to formulate a new research agenda to study the EU in its full international context—one, in other words, that proposed evaluating the links, networks, contacts, influence and dynamics that both historically and in more recent times have connected the EU to the outside world and which have ‘energised, complemented or rivalled the efforts of the European Community’.33 The aim, according to Patel, should be to show that while the EC/EU model is a unique form of international cooperation, it nonetheless does not exist in a vacuum: some of its policy innovations and responses have been formulated in contact with or as a reaction to external influences.34 Similarly, the lack of research on the EU’s relations with other IOs has been noted within the field of EU studies. A book edited by Amandine Orsini focuses on the EU’s relations with United Nations organisations and asks how to study the causes, forms and effects of the  Warlouzet, XIX.  N. Piers Ludlow, ‘Introduction’, in N. Piers Ludlow (ed.), European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik–Westpolitik, 1965–1973 (London: Routledge, 2007). 32  Patel, ‘Provincialising European union’. A similar but somewhat earlier criticism was contained in Wolfram Kaiser, ‘From State to Society? The Historiography of European Integration’, in Michelle Cini and Angela K. Bourne (eds.), Palgrave Advances in European Union Studies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 190–208. 33  Patel, ‘Provincialising European union’, 651. 34  Ibid., 652. 30 31

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EU’s long-term participation with(in) IOs. According to Orsini, the research agenda of studying the EU as an international actor has been scattered and it has neglected the study of two parameters: ‘the complexity of the international environment, and the historical dimension of the EU’s participation in it’.35 And the research agenda in the field of European integration history was pushed still further by Patel and Wolfram Kaiser in 2017, with a collection of articles that analysed the links between the EC and other regional organisations such as the Council of Europe, the OEEC and its successor, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and NATO. The aim was to point out how learning, diffusion of knowledge and ideas and other transnational influences travelled between IOs in Western Europe during the Cold War period.36 All of this means we have a pretty good sense of how the field of EU integration history has, since its inceptions in the 1970s, narrated the European integration process, and how it has recently responded to the critique about its narrow scope. And yet, vital work remains to be done. For while Patel and Kaiser’s approach seeks in many ways to invigorate the study of the EC/EU itself, our aim has been to show that provincialising the European Union also requires us to deal with integration ‘beyond Brussels’. The widening scope of research within the field has still not overcome the problem of EU-centricity. The central paradigm of the field is that European integration axiomatically only happens within or through the European Community/Union. As editors, we worked to position this book to scrutinise and dissect this paradigm and offer a more nuanced understanding of European integration. As a result, the approach taken in this collection is to focus on European actors and institutions and their efforts to foster unity, which do not necessarily have anything or very little

35  Amandine Orsini, ‘Introduction. Studying the EU with(in) International Organisations: Research Agenda’, in Amandine Orsini (ed.), The European Union with(in) International Organisations. Commitment, Consistency and Effects across Time (London and New  York: Routledge, 2014), 1. For more on the EU’s contribution to multilateralism see Katie Verlin Laatikainen and Karen E.  Smith (eds.), The European Union at the United Nations: Intersecting Multilateralisms (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). 36  Wolfram Kaiser and Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘Multiple Connections in European Cooperation: International Organizations, Policy Ideas, Practices and Transfers 1967–1992’, European Review of History 24, no. 3 (2017): 337–57; Thomas Risse, ‘De-centring the European Union: Policy Diffusion among European Regional Organizations – A Comment’, European Review of History 24, no. 3 (2017): 472–83.

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to do with EC/EU integration as such but which, we claim, should be labelled as European integration. Accepting that European integration is more than EU-based cooperation has both practical as well as theoretical implications. To start, if we agree that there is more to European integration than just the EU, it is easier to admit that the EU cannot and will not accommodate every European country’s preferences. Some aspiring members such as Turkey have been in the waiting room for decades, while countries in the post-­ Soviet space like Ukraine and Georgia are just entering the queue. Britain joined the now EU in 1973 but has since opted to leave. Russia has during most of the EC/EU’s existence rejected it. Elaborating, as this book does, some of the multitude of ways that countries may cooperate with one another despite all this can give policymakers vital points of departure. What is more, studying European integration ‘beyond Brussels’ opens a new view into the study of the present. It is important to tease out forms of cooperation that have so far been hidden or neglected in the grand narrative of European integration, because we do not know which building-­ blocks of contemporary Europe will be important for European unity as well as Europeans in the future.

European Integration Beyond the EU In designing a novel approach to European integration ‘beyond Brussels’, what we argue ultimately is that the term ‘European integration’ needs to regain its broader meaning. Europe is and should be more than the EU, and integration is more than Brussels-centred integration towards supranationalism. Here we acknowledge that we are aiming to reinvigorate a field that has systematically been building this exact paradigm of EU-centricity, which sees European integration as synonymous with the progress of the EC/EU integration. As Patel argues, the EEC and those representing it played a considerable role in making it the gold standard, turning itself ‘into the symbolic core of all attempts of European co-operation’.37 The aim to broaden the scope of activities studied under the label of European integration resonates with a critique posed towards EU studies: the incongruity of the EU’s and Europe’s borders, geographically,

 Patel, ‘Provincialising European union’, 665–7.

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politically as well as culturally.38 The critique towards the frequent and ingrained use of the EU as a synonym for Europe, and the subsequent ‘othering’ of the non-EU parts of Europe, has been raised within the field of East European area studies.39 While the Cold War seemed to divide the continent with a Berlin Wall, the East-West division dates back much longer—even to the era of the Enlightenment according to Larry Wolff’s influential book Inventing Eastern Europe.40 The collapse of communism seemed to dilute the need for this type of peripheralisation of Eastern Europe as the former communist countries adopted a ‘return to Europe’ onto the political agenda for their transition. However, the eastern enlargement of the EU has nevertheless ‘intensified questions about the boundaries of Europe and Europeaness’.41 In our aim to broaden the scope of what counts as European, our contribution joins this critique of the narrow focus on the EU integration that takes a teleological view of the EU uniting Europe.42 The individual chapters of the book depict a Europe from the ‘Atlantic to the Urals’, and even beyond, with Anna Lowry’s contribution on the EAEU extending the geographic scope to Central Asia. In particular, the chapters bring new light on integration processes in the eastward part of the continent, which has so far been in the focus of integration studies only to the extent that the countries in the region have aligned themselves to Brussels-based organisations.43 38  Noel Parker (ed.), The Geopolitics of Europe’s Identity: Centers, Boundaries, and Margins (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Mikael af Malmborg and Bo Stråth (eds.), The Meaning of Europe: Variety and Contention Within and Among Nations (Oxford: Berg, 2002). 39  Pamela Ballinger, ‘Recursive Easts, Shifting Peripheries: Whither Europe’s ‘Easts’ and ‘Peripheries’?’ East European Politics and Societies 31, no. 1 (2017): 3–10. For more on ‘othering’ see Beyza Ç. Tekin, Representations and Othering in Discourse: The Construction of Turkey in the EU Context (Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 2010). 40  Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994). 41  Merje Kuus, ‘Geopolitics Roundtable. Multiple Europes: Boundaries and Margins in European Union Enlargement’, Geopolitics 10, no. 3 (2005): 567–70, here 567. 42  Gilbert, ‘Narrating the Process’. For an understanding of the long historical roots of the East-West divide, see Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. 43  Eastern Europe thus entered the focus of EU studies at the turn of the 1990s when the collapse of communism for the first time opened the possibility of these countries joining the European Union. John Pinder, The European Community and Eastern Europe (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs 1991); Heinz Kramer, ‘The European Community’s Response to the New Eastern Europe’, Journal of Common Market Studies 31, no. 2 (1993): 213–44; Peter van Ham, The EC, Eastern Europe and European Unity. Discord, Collaboration

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The chapters in this book likewise focus on regional and subregional integration in Eastern and Western Europe as well as visions on and efforts and mechanisms towards all-European cooperation. They draw a vital picture of Europe, which consists of various subregions. Some are well-­ established with their own regional organisations, such as the Visegrad Group; others are more imagined such as ‘Central Europe’.44 It is here that our book contributes to another field within area studies that problematises the concept of Europe in a multidisciplinary framework, namely ‘new regionalism’.45 An article by Philippe De Lombaerde and others addresses the ‘Eurocentric bias’ within comparative regionalism by noting that much of the literature uses the EU experience as a basis of generalisations. The EU has become the gold standard for what integration is and what it aims at. Thus, as the authors point out, other modes of regionalism are compared to the EU standard, reflecting ‘a teleological prejudice’ which understands ‘progress’ in terms of EU-style institutionalisation.46 In our quest to broaden the definition of regional integration, we take as a starting point Leon Lindberg’s definition of European integration to mean ‘the development of devices and processes for arriving at collective decisions by means other than autonomous action by national governments’.47 A large share of the literature on regional integration has originated in the study of economic integration and focused on the organisations’ ability to influence market integration and create trade. Already early theorists of integration noted that the EEC had ‘clearly emerged as the nucleus

and Integration Since 1947 (London: Pinter Publishers, 1993); Karen E. Smith, The Making of EU Foreign Policy: The Case of Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1998); Jose I. Torreblanca, The Reuniting of Europe. Promises, Negotiations and Compromises (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001). 44  See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London and New York: Verso, 2006). 45  Fredrik Söderbaum, Rethinking Regionalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 46  Philippe De Lombaerde, Fredrik Söderbaum, Luk van Langenhove and Francis Baert, ‘Problems and Divides in Comparative Regionalism’, in Finn Laursen (ed.), Comparative Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (Abingdon and New  York: Routledge, 2010), 21–39. For a refreshing examination of the deployment (or not) of regionalism by scholars see Louise Fawcett, ‘The History and Concept of Regionalism’, European Society of International Law Conference Paper Series, no. 4 (2012), available at https://ssrn.com/ abstract=2193746 (accessed 10 January 2020). 47  Leon N.  Lindberg, The Political Dynamics of European Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 5.

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of integration efforts in Europe’.48 Nevertheless, while some regional organisations do not even aim at economic integration—as Vinokurov and Libman argue in their study on regional economic organisations49—for many of them non-economic outcomes can be far more important. These organisations may be valuable for their members even though they do not produce any tangible outcomes in terms of their declared goals. The CMEA—an organisation dubbed a failure in terms of integration50—is a good example of this. For on the one hand recent scholarship shows that it did engage in admittedly fruitless discussions as to whether to develop supranational forms of economic integration.51 Even so, following Vinokurov and Libman’s classification,52 the CMEA ‘assume(d) political or even security functions’53 and it could be seen a platform for ‘facilitating communication among leaders during moments of crisis’.54 Thus, the aim of this book is to underline the importance of the aims and processes towards integration and not just the outcome of the actions. In practice, this sees the book mix chapters that do not refer or even relate to the common narrative of EU integration with those that deal with their respective IO’s direct interaction with the EC/EU.  Several chapters concentrating on subregional cooperation do not build on the general trends and progress of Brussels-based cooperation; others by contrast take the approach of distinguishing their respective form of integration in relation to the EC/EU. The chapters similarly provide a variety of ways and processes through which Europe has been unified, several of which do not entail the pooling of sovereignty or striving towards supranational decision-making according to the EC/EU model. As we shall see, unity has been produced by active mediation and bridge-building policies, by policymakers acting outside as well as within the formal 48  Bela Balassa, ‘European Integration: Problems and Issues’, The American Economic Review 53, no. 2 (1963): 175–84, here 175. 49  Evgeny Vinokurov and Alexander Libman, Re-evaluating Regional Organizations: Behind the Smokescreens of Official Mandates (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 50  Andre Steiner, ‘The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance  – An Example of Failed Economic Integration?’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 39, no. 2 (2013): 240–58. 51  See special issue, edited by Uwe Müller and Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast, called ‘The Comecon Revisited: Integration in the East Bloc and Entangled Global Economies’, Comparativ 27, nos. 5–6 (2017). 52  Vinokurov, Libman, Re-evaluating Regional Organizations, 2–3. 53  Kansikas, ‘The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance’. 54  Elena Dragomir, ‘Romania’s Participation in the Agricultural Conference in Moscow, 2–3 February 1960’, Cold War History 13, no. 3 (2013), 331–51.

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framework of the EU, and even within the forum of East-West trade discussions. Unity has likewise been achieved by cooperation between parliamentary parties and other non-governmental organizations, through the exchange of ideas and practices, and through envisioning cooperative forms and models. Economic integration was also a political goal of the regimes on the other side of the Iron Curtain: for the centrally planned economies, integration could be pursued through planning and coordination on the intergovernmental level.55 And while some of the individual chapters of the book focus on integration policies at the national level, there are many more that are interested in individuals traversing layers of power. Contributions towards unearthing the ‘hidden integration’ produced by technology, joining the call to ‘transnationalise’ European integration, also form part of the book.56 All the examples discussed in our book attest to European integration taking place and being actively produced at many levels above and beyond the nation state. Here we engage with the latest developments in the study of transnational history. De-centring the state is the main approach of transnational history. Influenced by the constructivist turn, scholars in the field since the end of the Cold War have been primarily interested in phenomena related to the non-material world: information flows and ideological change.57 We join this field by analysing individuals, groups and trans- and sub-national actors that interacted across institutions, and by offering a novel periodisation without the state-centric, realist inclination towards wars and conflicts.58 In this vein, the chapters of the book transcend boundaries within the Cold War and EU literature by focusing on continuities beyond the crucial turning points of 1945, 1950/57 and 1989. While bringing a diverse group of chapters—and scholars and disciplines—together, we are fully aware that this volume is by no means 55  For latest analyses of CMEA integration, see the special issue Comparativ 27, nos. 5–6 (2017). 56  See the endeavours towards this end in the six-volume book series ‘Making Europe’ by Palgrave Macmillan, details of which are available at https://www.palgrave.com/gp/ series/14816 (accessed 20 June 2018). 57  Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War’, International Organization 48, no. 2 (1994): 185–214. 58  Akira Iriye, ‘Historicizing the Cold War’, in Richard H. Immerman and Petra Goedde (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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comprehensive in its coverage of European IOs. Several European organisations and subregions are not represented in the book. Nordic or Mediterranean cooperation, to name a few, are not covered. The book is also noticeably lacking chapters on the Council of Europe and the OEEC/ OECD. The security aspect of European cooperation within the context of NATO, WEU or the Warsaw Pact is likewise missing. The scope is nevertheless broad enough to underline the fact that EU does not constitute Europe, and integration in its various forms happens ‘beyond Brussels’. Moreover, many of the chapters do not fit into the chronology we are used to reading within European or Cold War history. This is because they, in line with transnational history, are more interested in progress and activities that are not generated by nation states: energy prices and technological progress for instance are global phenomena over which nation states seek to control but which are often driven by broader, global trends.

Structure of the Book The book consists of three parts, which expose three distinct, though often interdependent, levels of European regionality: the pan-European, regional and subregional levels. Writing in 2009, Andrew Cottey stated that ‘over the last twenty years or so regions, regionalism and regional integration have emerged as growing factors in global politics’.59 Part of the explanation for this is doubtless the establishment of the European Union and the collapse of communism, which together opened the former eastern bloc to accession to the EU and NATO; research on regionalism and, by extension, subregionalism, flourished in tandem. The literature on regionalism has thus been much influenced by the existence of the EU as an integrative and co-optative institution. However, since a good portion of scholarship does tend to treat the EU as the major point of departure for European regionalism, we engage with this literature critically.60 We of course accept the difficulty and contentious nature of defining what is a region and what is a subregion. But in line with the argument of this book—which is to look for unity processes beyond the EU—we adopt a 59  Andrew Cottey, ‘Sub-regional Cooperation in Europe: An Assessment’, Bruges Regional Integration and Global Governance Papers no. 3 (2009), 6. The authors would like to thank Martin Dangerfield for bringing the literature on subregionalism to their attention. 60  De Lombaerde, Söderbaum, van Langenhove and Baert, ‘Problems and Divides in Comparative Regionalism’.

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different view on the EU’s role and place on the map of European regionalism. For instance we disagree with the literature that the EU alone constitutes integration on the European, macro-level—after all, at the time of writing it counts 27 out of 44 European countries among its membership.61 This fact and more so its origins as a Western European club of six founding members designate it as a regional rather than a pan-European process. Because of all this, we use our three-level categorisation of European integration processes and regional organisations in order to represent the macro-, the meso- and the micro-levels. This division is based on the approach of multi-levelled interaction, which distinguishes between the focus area and ambitions of the IOs and other actors on the European continent.62 Part I, called ‘Pan-European Ideas, Structures and Interactions’, has four chapters which work on the all-European level, with a focus on either continent-wide projects or cooperation which breaks free of the East-West divide. The chapters form a picture of pan-European IOs as agents in East-West bridge-building. They begin with Daniel Stinsky’s contribution (Chap. 2) on the UNECE, which in many ways was (and is) a remarkable body. After all, it was the first post-1945 IO dedicated to economic cooperation on the European continent whose evolution saw policymakers struggle head-on with what was meant by ‘Europe’. While its value may have seemingly declined in the face of institutional competition from the subsequent creation of the OEEC and later the ECSC, so Stinsky argues, the UNECE nevertheless carved out a niche for itself in fostering international technical cooperation. Its first Executive Secretary, Gunnar Myrdal, indeed consciously saw its role less as a grand vision of ‘unity’ than as a practical, technical way for European states from both sides of the Iron Curtain to work together despite the broader antagonisms and misunderstandings of the developing Cold War. Chapter 3 by Philippe Vonnard picks up on this pan-European dynamic but concentrates on cultural cooperation. More specifically, he examines  Cottey, ‘Sub-regional Cooperation in Europe’, 9.  Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy, ‘Introduction: The Cold War from a New Perspective’, in Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy (eds.) Reassessing Cold War Europe (London: Routledge, 2011), 1–15. The meso-level is a relevant category also for instance in the history of technology. For example Thomas Misa, ‘Retrieving Sociotechnical Change from Technological Determinism’, in Leo Marx and Merritt Roe Smith (eds.), Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1998), 115–41. 61 62

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the early years of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), formed in 1954, and its European Champions Clubs’ Cup—a competition which included football teams from both Eastern and Western Europe—televised on another European platform: the Eurovision network of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Vonnard traces the negotiations between UEFA and the EBU—a less appreciated example of IO-IO interaction—which led to the televising of football matches, favoured by the latter for their ostensibly apolitical content and acknowledged by both as having the capacity to improve understanding and appreciation of other ‘European’ nations. Taking a slightly different route, Chap. 4 by Alexandra Athanasopoulou Köpping tells a new story of the Socialist Group of the European Parliament, and in particular the efforts of its members to engage in parliamentary diplomacy via East-West party networks such as the Socialist International—all of which the Socialist Group used to build bridges towards the Soviet Union. The chapter challenges the teleological view that the EP gained international, diplomatic agency only after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992/93 and shows the informal, extra-EU role played by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Meanwhile, Chap. 5 on the OSCE, written by Emma Hakala, argues that the organisation had an integrative and Europeanising role in the reconstruction of post-war Balkans. Due to the organisation’s wide mandate and membership, it has used its position as a bridge-builder to promote European norms and values in the region and to assist the countries’ EU accession goals. Part II, entitled ‘Imagining, Negotiating and Building Regional Integration’, consists of those chapters which focus on what might be called meso-level integration projects, pertaining more closely to the East-­ West political blocs in Europe. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with Western European-centric cooperation, beginning with the piece by Ettore Costa on the British Labour Party and the formative years of the Socialist International (SI). Costa asserts that the social democratic network became a space for discussion about European cooperation, and that exposure to this network itself also helped define Labour’s views on the matter. In so doing, he adds crucial nuances to our understanding of Labour’s oft-perceived ‘rejection’ of unity in the 1950s; rather, together with several of its counterparts within the SI, Labour developed a vision of integration that was both rational and robust in supporting cooperation of sorts even though this did not necessarily coincide with the vision then

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driving the six members of the ECSC. This latter conclusion overlaps considerably with the argument made by Juhana Aunesluoma in his examination of the European Economic Area (EEA) treaty, a project designed by the European Commission in late-1980s to build a bridge between the European Community and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). At its heart, Aunesluoma claims, was an understanding that some countries in Western Europe were then unlikely to be able to join the Community in the medium term. While its longevity—surviving as it does to the modern day—may well have surprised its creators, it nonetheless became a less political and less supranational framework for countries aiming to achieve similar economic goals. This is, in other words, a prime example of integration ‘by other means’. Chapters 8 and 9 then examine the Eastern portion of the continent. In his chapter, Falk Flade analyses in particular the CMEA’s transnational energy infrastructures: the electricity grid ‘Mir’ (Peace), crude oil pipeline ‘Druzhba’ (Friendship) and the gas pipeline ‘Soyuz’ (Union). These were the most successful results of Eastern bloc economic integration, which worked to counter Western arguments that CMEA integration was a failure. Crucially, though, this was not based on free-market integration— which is the basic premise of many economic integration theories—but, in the case of cross-border infrastructure projects, was built through mutual collaboration and investments of CMEA members, the result of which was ‘hidden integration’. The following contribution by Anna Lowry picks up this discussion by analysing the common industrial and innovation policies of the members of the present-day Eurasian Economic Union, elaborated through their adoption and participation in so-called Technology Platforms. The chapter argues for a non-EU centric approach to integration, which acknowledges the members’ stage of development as transitioning countries, their position as commodity exporters and the power and resource asymmetry between Union members, while making the argument that smaller EAEU members see benefits in joining the Russian-­ led bloc as a way to improve their positions in global value chains. ‘European Integration At and Around the Subregional Level’, the name of Part III, in turn analyses European integration on the micro-level of the regional hierarchy. In doing so, it distinguishes cooperation between entities whose membership is typically based on contiguity and a shared sense of belonging. Subregions are ‘sub-sets of a larger regional space’ that usually have broad agendas but are less institutionalised and deal with

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low-level politics.63 Of the four chapters in this section, Chaps. 10 and 11 grapple with subregional cooperation during the Cold War. Pauli Heikkilä’s chapter centres on proposals outlined by émigrés for a Central European federation in the 1950s, studying these via the four main party coalitions through which political emigrants tended to congregate. Heikkilä traces the origins of the proposals, teases out the shared aims of the four coalitions—which included social democrats, liberals, peasants and Christian democrats—but also ponders the reasons why these ideas never really gained traction. Despite ‘failing’, the chapter nevertheless highlights that emigrants had a very clear sense of how their own subregion and the European continent more generally ought to integrate—visions that were not always shared or welcomed by their Western European counterparts. John Krige’s chapter also concentrates on an ultimately rather disappointing venture: the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO). This was launched to make use of what was left from Britain’s cancelled Blue Streak missile programme, and promised to allow its members to develop a satellite launch vehicle as a way of competing with American, Soviet and Japanese space technology. In tracing the early history of the ELDO, Krige shows the inconsistencies of Britain’s approach to the project. The chapter’s value is in showing the lessons of this story in terms of understanding Britain’s wider approach to European integration and, more generally, the struggles between countries as they cooperated on scientific projects as a distinct example of cooperation beyond the strict confines of the EEC/EU. The remaining two chapters then deal with Central East European subregional cooperation, of which currently the best-known example is the Visegrad Group. In Chap. 12, Katalin Miklóssy gives a long-term view into the external and internal impulses that have led to the countries’ interest in subregional cooperation and the various cooperation forms and initiatives that these countries have been involved in during their history. Chapter 13 by Martin Dangerfield on the other hand dives deep into the substance and activities of the Visegrad. With a focus on intra-group societal and cultural cooperation including Grant and Partnership schemes, cooperation with non-participants (so-called Visegrad+) and defence cooperation, the chapter shows how the organisation contributes to the  Cottey, ‘Sub-regional Cooperation in Europe’, 6.

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EU-level integration process while also complementing it by filling some gaps that the EU does not provide. In our concluding chapter (Chap. 14), Anne Deighton then reflects on some of the key findings that these authors present and some of the implications of the book for our understanding of the past, current and future European integration process.

PART I

Pan-European Ideas, Structures and Interactions

CHAPTER 2

‘Integration, Nobody Knows What It Means’: European Cooperation and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), 1947–56 Daniel Stinsky

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations (UN). Founded in 1947, it predates both the Marshall Plan, which began administering American dollar aid via the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) the following year, and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) founded in 1951. The UNECE was, in fact, the first permanent post-1945 international organisation (IO) dedicated to general economic cooperation on the European continent. Amid the emerging Cold War divide, the UNECE was unique in bringing together countries from both east and west. In public perception and in the historiography on European integration, however, knowledge of the UNECE

D. Stinsky (*) Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_2

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is marginal at best.1 The aim of this chapter is subsequently to contextualise the UNECE in the history of (economic) cooperation in post-1945 Europe. It argues that the pan-European UNECE is a ‘suppressed historical alternative’2 to other (Western) European venues, including the OEEC and its later incarnation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and, most notably perhaps, the European Community/Union (EC/EU). In line with the chapters in this volume, it shows that there is value in exploring the much broader set of actors and ideas which fostered European unity after 1945. The UNECE barely features in the textbook literature on European integration. This is in part because it is not one of the EU’s direct predecessors. But it also reflects the quite limited definition of European integration itself. Mark Gilbert, for instance, defines integration as ‘the historical process whereby European nation-states have been willing to transfer, or more usually pool, their sovereign powers in a collective enterprise’.3 This focus on the ‘pooling’ of sovereignty is borrowed from functionalist international relations theory.4 From a historical perspective, however, the concept is impractical because it automatically assumes a teleological outlook that, as the editors of this volume make clear, ignores alternative forums or models of cooperation.5 Looking at historical 1  Most existing accounts of the UNECE’s history were written by former UNECE actors such as Yves Berthelot (ed.), Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas: Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004); Gunnar Myrdal, ‘Twenty Years of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’, International Organization 22, no. 3 (1968): 617–28; Václav Kostelecký, The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: The Beginning of a History (Göteborg: Graphic Systems, 1989). More recent publications by academic historians include Örjan Appelqvist, ‘Rediscovering Uncertainty: Early Attempts at a Pan-European Post-War Recovery’, Cold War History 8, no. 3 (2008): 327–52; Vincent Lagendijk, ‘The Structure of Power: The UNECE and East-West Electricity Connections, 1947–1975’, Comparativ 24, no. 1 (2014): 50–65. 2  The concept of a suppressed historical alternative is taken from Barrington Moore, Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1978). 3  Mark Gilbert, European Integration: A Concise History (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), 1. 4  Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958). 5  Hence Patel’s call, discussed in the introduction of this volume, to ‘provincialise’ the EC/EU within historical research, see Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘Provincialising European union: Cooperation and Integration in Europe in a Historical Perspective’, Contemporary European History 22, no. 4 (2013): 649–73.

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sources, particularly those from the 1950s, it indeed becomes obvious that the term ‘European integration’ tended at first to be used much more loosely, with ‘integration’ taken to mean the reduction of economic barriers and the construction of some form of collective political decision-­ making. This more encompassing definition of European integration better allows us to include in the integration ‘story’ those IOs like the UNECE which operated outside the framework of the EEC/EU. How does this story change if the UNECE is included? As we will see, the UNECE’s very existence in fact challenges conventional assumptions about the early European integration process. What constituted ‘Europe’ was debated and constricted well before the early EU began to expand. Understood broadly as a trend towards political and economic convergence among European entities, European integration clearly involved multiple institutions covering different, overlapping geographical frameworks which reflected different definitions of what ‘Europe’ meant after the Second World War. A central difference between the UNECE, the OEEC/OECD and the EC/EU, was in fact not whether they were intergovernmental or supranational organisations but their geographical scope. In terms of membership, the IOs discussed in this chapter resemble a set of Russian nesting dolls; bigger dolls contained the smaller ones, with the oldest being the biggest and the youngest the smallest. The UN of the late 1940s and early 1950s was not yet today’s truly global organisation, but it was nevertheless the biggest; the UNECE institutionalised ‘Europe’ as a category for economic cooperation but with a membership that stretched to include both the Soviet Union and the United States; the OEEC, formed in 1948, introduced ‘Western Europe’ as a new category for economic cooperation; and the ECSC consisted of just six states within the Western bloc. Western European cooperation was thus a conscious move away from existing forms of all-European cooperation and towards intramural economic integration in a Cold War context. In this story—one we might call Matryoshka-Europe—the Marshall Plan, and more accurately Moscow’s refusal to accept American Marshall assistance, constituted an important turning point. Crucially, however, neither the Marshall Plan nor the later formation of the Europe of ‘the Six’ negated those institutions referenced above. Instead, the likes of the UN, the UNECE, the Council of Europe, and the OEEC/OECD continued to exist in parallel and continuously transformed to foster new forms of economic cooperation. Not only did they consequently exist before the EU, they also remained a constant part of the integration process. Along with later additions like the European Free

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Trade Association (EFTA), the subject in part of Juhana Aunesluoma’s chapter in this volume, and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) explored by Emma Hakala, these IOs still today constitute forums for specific forms of European cooperation outside the EU framework. They are more than footnotes in a history of European integration understood as the success story of the EU; indeed, the vast majority of these, like most other IOs, tend not to die or collapse.6 Instead, they altered and adjusted to changing circumstances, and continue today to have a significant impact on political and economic developments—albeit rarely in the way that was originally intended.

The UNECE: A Cold War Technical Agency The UNECE’s mandate, adopted on 3 April 1947, requested it be two things: a permanent intergovernmental conference for the international coordination of economic policy, and a technocratic think-tank collecting, analysing and disseminating knowledge about economic and technical problems.7 Like other organisations, the UNECE was therefore both a forum where delegates convened and through which member states interacted, and also an actor in its own right: that is, an international bureaucracy with research functions. The onset of the Cold War frustrated the UNECE’s pan-European ambitions, with communist governments boycotting its technical committees and Western governments creating a series of competing venues like the OEEC and ECSC. The UNECE’s evolution was thus necessarily one of small steps. As Gunnar Myrdal, the UNECE’s first Executive Secretary, said in 1953, ‘Even in the best event, I am not looking forward to rapid and spectacular accomplishments. The maximum hope I have is that […] it will be possible gradually to change a situation which is not good to a situation which is somewhat better.’8 Admittedly, the UNECE was no success story. It did not succeed in overcoming the Cold War divide. Nor did it become the central planning 6  Susan Strange, ‘Why Do International Organizations Never Die?’, in Bob Reinalda and Bertjan Verbeek (eds.), Autonomous Policy Making by International Organisations (London: Routledge, 1998). 7  Yves Berthelot, ‘Unity and Diversity of Development: The Regional Commissions’ Experience’, in Berthelot, Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas, 1–50, here 15–17. 8  United Nations Offices at Geneva Archives (hereafter UNOG), AAR 14/1360/Box 83, ‘UNECE Debate at 9th Session: Gunnar Myrdal’s speech to the Economic and Social Council’, 8 July 1953.

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agency for European economic cooperation in the way it aspired to be. Its remit was instead restricted to negotiating agreements of a non-binding nature. Member states were free to decide whether they wanted to participate, could join ongoing consultations at will and could choose when and whether to adopt agreements. But the UNECE’s story was not a story of complete failure either. The range of activities pursued by the UNECE as a technical agency—a niche that it would ultimately carve out for itself— was remarkably broad given the extremely adverse geopolitical conditions in which it operated. Among other things it initiated talks to facilitate border-crossings and simplify trade procedures; helped to design a network of roads and railroads across a divided European continent; instigated discussions on harmonising traffic signals and improving road safety; and saw efforts to reduce air and water pollution, minimise industrial accidents, improve the quality of perishable goods, and manage gas storage. Nor did these small but arguably quite remarkable achievements stop there. Indeed, many of the UNECE’s conventions and norms have since become part of the EU’s central body of law—the acquis communautaire—and thus continue to influence EU legislation.9 Several UNECE norms and conventions also extended to countries beyond the continent; the UNECE’s legacy has hence acquired a global character.10 In technical matters, the UNECE continues its work even today—in parallel to the much more publicised work of EU institutions.

UN Universalism and European Regionalism The history of the UNECE and its conception of ‘Europe’ are inextricably linked to the history of its parent organisation, the UN. The UN was built to be the central tenet of the new international order, forged in the 1940s by wartime planners in Washington, London and elsewhere. During these years, influential officials in the United States’ (US) Department of State— notably Sumner Welles and Cordell Hull—rejected regionalism in favour of a universal arrangement thought to be more adaptive to changing circumstances. Hull proposed a global organisation of which every nation should be a member and where no regional sub-organs existed. Regional organisations, he feared, might create trade barriers and even precipitate 9  Yves Berthelot, ‘Unity and Diversity of Development: The Regional Commissions’ Experience’, 20–1. 10  Ibid., 7.

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new conflicts.11 The founding principles of the UN were thus its universal premise and explicit rejection of regionalism. The creation of the UNECE in 1946–47 marked the introduction of European regionalism into the hitherto universal UN system and thus into the ongoing reconfiguration of international relations after the Second World War. In order to understand why this was the case, it is necessary briefly to summarise the UNECE’s founding. The UN resolution that led to the UNECE’s creation was proposed by Poland’s Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Jan Stanczyk, and unanimously adopted at the first-­ ever session of the UN General Assembly in London in February 1946.12 Remarkably, the resolution did not use the term ‘Europe’ at all. Instead, it spoke of the ‘reconstruction of countries member to the UN devastated by the war’.13 Underlying this was a desire to make permanent a commitment first realised via the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)—which had operated since 1943 but was due soon to cease work—to help those countries blighted by fighting still in need of outside assistance. What the UNRRA had begun with humanitarian aid, it was hoped, would be continued by a new permanent UN agency designed to promote reconstruction via international economic cooperation. It was the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and more specifically its Temporary Sub-Commission on Devastated Areas, which first suggested this be accomplished via economic commissions centred on specific geographical regions. On the basis of its reports, the General Assembly in December 1946 thus recommended the establishment of the first two regional bodies, one for Europe (the UNECE) and one for Asia and the Far East (UNECAFE).14 In so doing, ECOSOC combined the Polish call for a successor to the UNRRA with an existing American proposal for a UN-based permanent European economic institution. Walt Whitman Rostow, then a young economist in the US State Department’s German-Austrian affairs unit, had drafted such a proposal in March 1946. Rostow argued ‘that the unity of Germany could not be achieved without the unity of Europe’. European 11  Gabriele Clemens, Alexander Reinfeldt and Gerhard Wille, Geschichte der Europäischen Integration. Ein Lehrbuch (Paderborn: UTB, 2008), 63. 12  Appelqvist, ‘Rediscovering Uncertainty’, 340. 13  UNOG/General Assembly Resolution 28 (I), ‘Reconstruction of countries member of the UN devastated by the war’, 2 February 1946. 14  UNOG/General Assembly Resolution 46 (I), ‘Economic reconstruction of devastated areas’, 11 December 1946.

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unity, he maintained, should be approached ‘crabwise’ and ‘through technical cooperation in economic matters’.15 This incremental or ‘crabwise’ approach resembles functionalist thinking, but should be seen primarily in the context of rising tensions between the Western allies and the Soviet Union. Rostow’s draft ‘noted with concern [...] the assumption that Europe must one day divide into exclusive eastern and western blocs’; some sort of pan-continent economic grouping might consequently help ‘to prevent such a division’.16 Rostow and Charles Kindleberger, then head of Rostow’s unit, ‘believed that a combination of dollars and federalism’ might ‘retard the drifting apart of Eastern and Western Europe’ and ‘hoped that the same formula could be applied to the German problem’.17 With the example of interwar Germany in mind, Rostow understood reconstruction, order and prosperity as a means to prevent the rise of extremist sentiments. The key motivation for a permanent economic organisation was thus to prevent the looming division of Europe. ‘[T]he purpose of those papers was much bigger than [the] UNECE’, Rostow maintained in retrospect. They were ‘a last try to prevent the split of Europe […] we made this effort, we failed, but the UNECE came out of it.’18 Rostow’s outline for an intergovernmental economic agency became the basis for a joint resolution by Poland—the state that had initiated the process—the United States and Britain, which together formally announced the proposal of the UNECE and UNECAFE to the UN General Assembly.19 The establishment of two regional economic organisations within the UN formalised regionalism within the international system and marked a renunciation of the universalist principle underlying the UN and Bretton

15  Charles P. Kindleberger, ‘Appendix D: Origins of the Marshall Plan. Memorandum by Charles P. Kindleberger, July 22, 1948’, in Stanley Hoffmann and Charles Maier (eds.), The Marshall Plan: A Retrospective (Boulder, CO and London: Westview Press, 1984), 115. 16  UNOG/ARR 14/1360/Box 69/Folder W.W. Rostow, ‘Draft of Proposed U.S. Plan for a European Settlement: Spring 1946’, undated. 17  John R. Gillingham, Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945–1955: The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 109. 18   Swedish Labour Movement’s Archives and Library (hereafter ARBARK), Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/4/3/7: Övriga handlingar rörande UNECE, Transcript of interview with Walt Rostow, undated (1979?). 19  Royal Institute of International Affairs, ‘United Nations Meetings’, Chronology of International Events and Documents 3, no. 7 (1947).

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Woods institutions.20 The UN Charter explicitly allowed regional arrangements in the maintenance of peace but not in economic cooperation.21 This ruled out the establishment of regional economic organisations directly under the UN.  To keep this principle formally untouched, the UNECE and UNECAFE were established as subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC. Changing the terminology from that contained in the original Polish resolution—which spoke of ‘devastated areas’—to ‘Europe’, allowed the inclusion in the UNECE of neutrals like Ireland and Sweden, as well as countries that had suffered comparatively minor war damage such as Denmark. But the new focus on geographic regions also meant the exclusion of other UN member states. The Ethiopian delegation protested after the General Assembly agreed to establish the UNECE and UNECAFE. While most of Africa was still under colonial rule, Ethiopia had just regained independence after a brief Italian occupation. The Ethiopian diplomat Getahoun Tesemma wrote to UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie reminding him of the devastation Ethiopia had suffered in the fight against fascist Italy.22 The original wording of the Polish resolution which committed the UN to the ‘reconstruction of devastated areas’ had in fact included Ethiopia; Tesemma thus maintained that the UNECE’s revised mandate must also include the African nation regardless of the term ‘European’. Assistant Secretary-General David Owen’s reply from UN headquarters brusquely referred the matter to the ECOSOC, where it was dropped.23 In the General Assembly, other non-European delegations expressed concerns that the UNECE would give the European continent an unfair commercial advantage. A Lebanese delegate for example pointed out that the Middle East and Northern Africa were still dependent on Europe economically, and proposed that the UNECE should be 20  Harold James, ‘The Multiple Contexts of Bretton Woods’, Past and Present 210, no. 6 (2011): 290–308. 21  See Chapter VIII (Regional Arrangements) and Chapter IX (International Economic and Social Cooperation) of the United Nations Charter, available at http://www.un.org/ en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/index.html (accessed 9 May 2016). 22  United Nations Archives and Records Management Section, New  York (hereafter UNARMS), S-0991-0004-06/ECOSOC Secretariat–Economic Commission for Europe 02/46-09/47, Getahoun Tesemma, Secretary of the Ethiopian Delegation to the UN General Assembly, to Trygve Lie, 16 December 1946. 23  UNARMS/S-0991-0004-06/ECOSOC Secretariat–Economic Commission for Europe 02/46-09/47, David Owen to Getahoun Tesemma, First Secretary, Imperial Ethiopian Legation, 24 January 1947.

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renamed the ‘Economic Commission for Europe and the Mediterranean’.24 Delegates from Peru, Venezuela and Chile similarly demanded representation for South American raw material producers. While these proposals were not taken up, the introduction of one regional commission created an impetus for similar organisations in other world regions. UNECAFE was established at the same time as the UNECE. Its budget, however, was considerably lower than that of UNECE, while the number of its professional staff—costed at 26—was dwarfed by the UNECE’s 187.25 An Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) was established in 1948. Similar Economic Commissions for Africa (UNECA) and for Western Asia (UNECWA) followed in 1951 and 1973 respectively.26

The UNECE and Subregional Organisations When the UNECE first took up its work in Geneva, it was preoccupied with reconstruction. Grand schemes of economic cooperation quickly broke down into complicated and technical tasks, such as the repatriation of thousands of railway wagons that the Wehrmacht had displaced across the continent. The UNECE also organised the distribution of scarce materials like coal, facilitated a rapid increase in steel production and helped to overcome severe bottlenecks in inland transport. The onset of the Cold War interfered with the UNECE’s more ambitious plans and gave an incentive for states to organise along subregional rather than all-­ European lines. Even so, the UNECE was to remain active as an all-­ European organisation throughout the Cold War. But it soon encountered prominent competition from other organisations with a more exclusive subregional focus. As Gunnar Myrdal would later reflect, ‘[a]s the [ideological] split widened, it was only natural that the most significant economic cooperation bypassed [the UNECE] and was negotiated and put into effect by subregional organisations on both sides of the division’.27 24  The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), FO 371/62383, ‘Comments by UK Permanent Representative to UN to FO’, 3 March 1947. 25   TNA/FO/371/62384, ‘Establishment of an Economic Commission for Europe: Economic and Social Council, Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, Provisional estimate presented by the Secretary-General in accordance with financial regulation no. 25 of the General Assembly, E/366/Add.1’, 23 March 1947. 26  On the regional commissions, see Berthelot, Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas. 27  Myrdal, ‘Twenty Years of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’, 619.

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The first and most serious of these competitors was the Marshall Plan organisation—the OEEC—which became the first post-1945 European economic organisation to step out of the UN framework. In this sense the OEEC facilitated the construction of Western Europe as a geostrategic and economic bloc. But it was not the solution planners in the State Department had originally favoured.28 They had in fact considered the UNECE as the most likely option to distribute Marshall Aid until it became clear that the USSR would refuse to accept American offers of economic assistance. ‘It is difficult to visualize what the Marshall Plan might have been like if the Soviet Union had decided to take part in it’, American delegate Paul Porter later wrote; ‘one thing, however, is evident: The Economic Commission for Europe would have been its instrumentality since there would have been no need to create another outside the United Nations.’29 For the UNECE, the creation of the OEEC meant the rise of a wealthy competitor with overlapping responsibilities and member states. By the end of the 1940s, the term ‘European integration’ was actively promoted by the US State Department, which kept it deliberately vague in order to balance expectations between Congress and European governments. Paul Hoffman, the head of the American agency in charge of the Marshall Plan (known as the Economic Cooperation Administration [ECA]), used the term in a speech at the OEEC Council in October 1949.30 Miriam Camps, an American diplomat who had been involved in the creation of both the UNECE and OEEC, now coordinated US policy at both venues. Before Hoffman’s speech, she suggested: ‘Let us use the word “integration” instead of “unification”, because unification to the Congress means the United States of Europe, and the Europeans aren’t going to do that […]. “Integration”, nobody knows what it means. That’s a far less loaded word.’31 Demanding the vaguely defined ‘integration’ of

28  Joseph M.  Jones, The Fifteen Weeks: An Insider Account of the Genesis of the Marshall Plan (New York: Viking Press, 1955). 29  ARBARK/Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/3/1/1: Korrespondens 1949–1982, Draft from Paul R. Porter, ‘From Morgenthau Plan to Marshall Plan: A Memoir’, 28 April 1980. 30  Matthias Schmelzer, The Hegemony of Growth. The OECD and the Making of the Economic Growth Paradigm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 31  Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence (hereafter HAEU), EUI Oral History Collection, transcript of Miriam Camps interviewed by F.  Duchêne, 30 August 1988, available at http://archives.eui.eu/en/files/transcript/15818?d=inline (accessed 20 July 2016).

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European economies thus became a compromise necessary for continued financial support from Congress. Following Hoffman’s speech, Myrdal criticised the ‘too big talking’ about European integration in his confidential reports to UN headquarters. European politicians paid lip service to European integration to please the Americans, but Europe’s economies were still bent towards national autarky. Even worse, Myrdal continued, overblown expectations raised by ‘integration’ were actually detrimental to the practical work of both the UNECE and OEEC: One unfortunate effect […] is that concrete, hard-won practical accomplishments in the field of European economic cooperation which, measured by any reasonable standard of previous times, are important, get an appearance of being petty and insignificant when measured against the publicised grand expectations of economic ‘integration’ and the creation of ‘a single market’. This applies to all our work in UNECE—road agreements, coal allocation and coal classification, timber market arrangements, etc.—and also to all the work, besides splitting the dollars, which has actually been done in OEEC.32

Subregional economic integration—in other words, the grouping of economies in the OEEC’s ‘Western Europe’ and its new Eastern counterpart, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)—was a consequence of Europe’s Cold War division. ‘Within the blocs, certain unnatural and more or less compulsory integrations have taken place’, a Yugoslavian delegate said at the fifth UNECE session in 1950. ‘These integrations are unnatural, because, in the final analysis, they harm the interests […] of Europe as a whole.’33 The statement testifies to the open meaning of ‘integration’. In the reading of this delegate, ‘integration’ was more or less identical with bloc formation in the Cold War context. It also meant that the ideological scope of economic cooperation in Europe continued to shrink: the UNECE had introduced ‘Europe’ as a regional

32  UNOG/ARR/14/1360/Box 71: Gunnar Myrdal, ‘Two Notes on ERP and East-West Trade’, December 1949. 33  National Archives and Records Administration College Park, MD (hereafter NARA), RG 59 Department of State Decimal File 340.240, 1950–54, Box 1345, Telegram from US Resident Delegation at UNECE to State Department, ‘Speeches of UK, Polish and Yugoslav Dels. at Fifth Session’, 2 June 1950.

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element supplementing the UN’s universalism; the OEEC had in turn introduced ‘Western Europe’ as a concurrent framework. Neither the UNECE nor the OEEC became the main vehicle of European integration. Both organisations eventually abandoned grand schemes of international economic policy coordination in favour of less politicised trade- and productivity-related issues. In the OEEC, a trade liberalisation programme largely replaced aspirations for political integration. This was, as Alan Milward put it, ‘thought of as a more apolitical route to the same goal, the use of Marshall Aid to force European countries to remove legislative and administrative barriers to trade’.34 In the UNECE, Myrdal identified trade between east and west as ‘our responsibility par préférence. It cannot be taken over by OEEC.’35 This agenda had little success at first. The UNECE trade committee was in fact dormant for several years after a Soviet boycott in 1949. What allowed the UNECE to survive these difficult first years was its entrenchment in various intergovernmental functions, for instance coal allocation, as well the UNECE Secretariat’s well-respected research work and some considerable accomplishments in agreeing rules on inland transport.36 By the time the ECSC first began to operate in 1952, the UNECE and OEEC had thus each found their own respective niche. The institutional dualism of a Western European OEEC versus an all-European UNECE was overshadowed by a new antagonism arising between supranational and intergovernmental approaches. The ECSC with its supranational features naturally posed a bigger challenge to the Western European OEEC than it did to the geographically broader UNECE. The OEEC had helped to shape ‘Western Europe’ as an economic entity, an imagined community of countries not just in the minds of geostrategists but economists and businessmen also. The early post-1945 conception of an all-European economic organisation embedded in the global UN system that the UNECE embodied had been pushed to the side lines by the Cold War and by the OEEC’s relative success. Now the OEEC found itself being 34  Alan S.  Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945–51 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1984), 281. 35  UNOG/ARR/14/1360/Box 71: Gunnar Myrdal, ‘Two Notes on ERP and East-West Trade’, December 1949. 36  For more see Gunnar Myrdal, ‘The Research Work of the Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Europe’, in Ekonomisk Tidskrift (ed.), 25 Economic Essays in English, German and Scandinavian Languages in Honour of Erik Lindahl (Stockholm: Ekonomisk Tidskrift, 1956), 267–93.

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challenged within Western Europe, while the all-European UNECE was growing more comfortable in its own niche of research and technical cooperation, as is discussed in the following section. The ECSC was the institutional result of a proposal in May 1950 by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and is habitually praised as the initial spark for a long-term trajectory of European integration.37 But as we know from the discussion above, the ECSC emerged on an already crowded system of international governance.38 Nor was the Schuman Plan the first attempt to organise coal and steel production in a European format.39 On the contrary, it followed in the footsteps of a line of predecessor organisations, firmly behind the European Coal Organisation (ECO), the coal committees of the UNECE and OEEC, and the International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR). All these organisations had been founded to tackle the Gordian knot that was considered the key to European recovery and a long-term peace settlement: the coal production of the Ruhr area. Together, they formed a complex but working international system for coal distribution between 1947 and 1949. With coal production increasing, this system was scheduled to cease in the third quarter of 1950. The Schuman Plan was meant to replace coal allocations and, in the process, safeguard France’s privileged access to Ruhr coal against the threefold risk of West Germany regaining sovereignty over its coal, full liberalisation of commercial trading, or a return of the interwar system of distinct importer/exporter cartels. The Ruhr was central to both the security and economic interests underlying the Schuman Plan. Alan Milward and John Gillingham have each interpreted the ECSC as an attempt to control West German coal and steel production and to save the French modernisation plan.40 Hellmuth Auerbach has shown meanwhile how French policy eventually centred on the idea of relabeling the Ruhr’s resources as ‘European’ resources and of

37  See, for instance, the ‘History’ section on the European Union’s official website available at https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history_en (accessed 20 November 2017). 38  For an overview of national motivations, see Michael Berger, ‘Motives for the Foundation of the ECSC’, Poznan University of Economics Review 13, no. 3 (2013), 55–90. 39  For an overview, see Guido Thiemeyer, Europäische Integration (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2010); Clemens, Reinfeldt, and Wille, Geschichte Der Europäischen Integration, 99–102. 40  Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe; Gillingham, Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe.

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mobilising Germany in the broader interest of European security.41 But this literature underplays the genesis of discussions about how best to distribute German coal in a way that benefitted the European recovery. Asked whether ‘something like a Schuman Plan to distribute German coal, as a strategic asset for other people’s steel industry’ would always have been necessary, Derek Ezra, the British delegate to the UNECE Coal Committee, replied: I’m not sure, because the coal committees of the UNECE and the OEEC were in fact doing this. […] There was a mechanism for dealing with the shortage of coal in European terms. The allocation of German coal was already set up and working. […] We effectively allocated German coal in the UNECE, particularly, with all the countries there, East and West.42

The ECSC would therefore build on the already existing foundations of organisations that provided working structures for international conferencing, economic cooperation in related sectors, and research and expertise. The UNECE Secretariat published regular statistics and economic analysis, the European scope of which was unique at the time and provided an important basis for the ECSC’s work. The same, importantly, went for personnel. UNECE officials were involved in different roles during the formation of the ECSC: they prepared reports and provided a link to non-ECSC members as well as to other sectors, especially transport. Several people from the UNECE’s Secretariat and national representatives in its committees transferred to work for the ECSC’s High Authority, including Francois Vinck, the Chair of the UNECE Coal Committee, who became Director-General of the ECSC’s services market.43 Most influential was the former director of the UNECE’s Steel Division, Luxembourg official Tony Rollman, whose

41  Hellmuth Auerbach, ‘Die Europäische Wende Der Französischen Deutschlandpolitk 1947/48’, in Ludolf Herbst, Werner Bührer and Hanno Sowade (eds.), Vom Marshallplan Zur EWG: Die Eingliederung Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Die Westliche Welt (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990). 42  HAEU/EUI Oral History Collection, transcripts of Lord Derek Ezra interviewed by F.  Duchêne, January and April 1989, available at http://archives.eui.eu/oral_history/ INT497 (accessed 20 July 2016). 43  UNOG/Box 67/Folder I/3/3: Schuman Authority, F.  Vinck to Gunnar Myrdal, 25 November 1952.

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biographer calls him ‘the Steel European’.44 A former employee of the major steel company ARBED, Rollman knew intimately both the steel sector and the wider economic IO landscape.45 During the negotiations that would lead to the creation of the ECSC Rollman became one of the key aides to Jean Monnet, the French architect of the Schuman Plan.46 So extensive was the involvement of UNECE staff that an internal position paper even warned against the UN organisation becoming a ‘labor reserve’ for the ECSC’s High Authority.47 Upon their arrival at the ECSC, however, the staff would quickly encounter a remarkably different way of working. The ECSC’s High Authority possessed, in contrast to the secretariats of the UNECE and OEEC, far-reaching independent powers. Its remit stretched to setting production quotas in order to manage demand in times of ‘manifest crisis’, imposing fines upon companies, floating loans on the capital market and then relending the money for investment, and addressing social issues through financing vocational retraining, resettlement programmes and allowances to workers.48 For Monnet—the High Authority’s inaugural president—the model to follow was ‘the war production committee, not the diplomatic conference’.49 The ECSC bore Monnet’s acquired preference for a technocratic and supranational resolution of complex political issues.50 Established technocrats like Rollman were naturally drawn to this project. Intergovernmental organisations like the OEEC and UNECE had previously shown their potential but carried limits. By contrast, the supranational pooling of sovereignty in the coal and steel sectors among the six members of ECSC seemed like a bold but also realistic move towards federation. This fact, and the expectation that the ECSC was just 44  Josef Brandt, ‘Der Stahleuropäer Tony Rollman’, in Charles Barthel and Josée Kirps (eds.) Terres Rouges. Histoire De La Sidérurgie Luxembourgeoise (Luxembourg: Centre d’études et de recherches européennes Robert Schuman, 2010), 10–34, here 11. 45  Tony Rollman, Une aventure européenne (Dudelage: CAN, 2004) available at http:// www.cvce.eu/de/obj/tony_rollman_and_his_role_in_the_economic_reconstruction_of_ europe-en-c2285a01-4d7c-4189-9bb2-acd81ba1f7e4.html (accessed 13 December 2016). 46  Berger, ‘Motives for the Foundation of the ECSC’. 47  UNOG/Box 67/Folder I/3/3: Schuman Authority, ‘Position paper for conversations between the UNECE Secretariat and the staff of the High Authority’, c. November 1952. 48  Gilbert, European Integration, 36. 49  Gillingham, Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe, 232. 50  Gilbert, European Integration, 27.

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a first step towards a still more ambitious outcome, attracted the term ‘integration’ as an explanation of the process being witnessed by Rollman and others.

The UNECE and the ‘Hidden Integration’ of Europe While the ECSC’s capability to captivate the idea of ‘European integration’ pushed the UNECE even further to the edge of public awareness, it maintained a crucial role in what historians of technology have called the ‘hidden integration’ of Europe via technical norms and standardisation.51 Technical aspects of economic cooperation continue to form the core of the UNECE’s work until today. As an intergovernmental organisation with no legislative powers, the UNECE focuses on coordination, norms and standards rather than laws and policies. UNECE standards range from obscure examples like the Standard on Llama and Alpaca Meat to regulations that deeply affect the everyday lives of millions of Europeans, like traffic rules.52 ‘Hidden integration’ is a significant part of market integration, as harmonisation of technical standards has considerably reduced non-tariff barriers to trade. Most of the UNECE’s practical work remained hidden behind a carefully cultivated veil of dullness. This was not least the result of Cold War tensions and heated debate between the blocs in the annual UNECE Commission meetings. Still, the UNECE Secretariat was a crucial agenda-­ setter through its research work. It deliberately sought to avoid confrontations in the year-round work of the technical committees. Discussions centred on topics such as woodcutting technology or the packaging of pickled herring. Such issues were rarely high on governments’ political agendas and thus avoided Cold War posturing. But they nevertheless had far-reaching effects. The establishment of common standards for refrigerator freight services, for instance, made it much easier to transport fresh produce over longer distances. As the New York Times suggested, this American-inspired UNECE project ‘brought visions to Italy of a 51  Wolfram Kaiser and Johan Schot, Writing the Rules for Europe. Experts, Cartels and International Organisations (Basingstoke and New  York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Thomas J.  Misa and Johan Schot, ‘Inventing Europe: Technology and the Hidden Integration of Europe’, History and Technology 21, no. 1 (2005): 1–19. 52  United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, UNECE Standard Llama/Alpaca Meat Carcases and Cuts. UNECE/Trade/368 (Geneva and New York: United Nations, 2006).

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prosperous fruit and vegetable empire as rich as California’.53 Trade patterns and diets changed significantly during the 1950s, as perishable foods such as fish from Norway or lemons from Italy could now be shipped over greater distances in refrigerated trucks and standardised packaging.54 The UNECE contributed to all this. Trade-related problems, especially non-tariff barriers, formed the largest share of the discussion in the UNECE’s technical committees covering topics such as inland transport, coal, steel and agriculture. By dividing the highly politicised and controversial trade issue into much smaller, technical questions, government representatives and UNECE officials actively sought to depoliticise them. Using this strategy, the UNECE remained a going concern and came deeply to impact the practice of economic cooperation in Europe. The UNECE’s technical work thus had direct, practical implications for market integration. But its effects were felt at an even larger scale. In facilitating technical agreements among interested governments, the UNECE laid the groundwork for other states in and beyond Europe to join certain projects at a later point in time. Some UNECE agreements—for instance its work on coal type classification—eventually became global in scope.55 The fact that the UNECE’s work was largely technical did not mean therefore that it lacked ambition. As Paul Hartmann-Charguéraud, the Director of the UNECE Secretariat’s Transport Division, wrote in 1948, ‘The Working Party on Highways is concerned with no less a problem than that of developing for Europe roads that will serve the needs of our times at least as well as the Roman roads served in ancient times’.56 His ‘Roman roads’ allegory expressed faith in international cooperation as well as in the ability of technical experts to create a legacy of historic proportions: the free and easy movement of goods and people across borders was 53  ARBARK/Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/4/2/2: Mars-December 1948, Draft article for The New York Times Magazine by Michael L.  Hoffman, ‘They show that Nations can cooperate’, 12 September 1948. 54  Wolfgang Protzner, ‘Vom Hungerwinter bis zum Beginn der “Freßwelle”’, in Wolfgang Protzner (ed.), Vom Hungerwinter zum kulinarischen Schlaraffenland. Aspekte einer Kulturgeschichte des Essens in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1987). 55   Wladek Malinowski, ‘Centralization and Decentralization in the United Nations Economic and Social Activities’, International Organization 16, no. 3 (1962): 521–41. 56   ARBARK/Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/4/2/2: Mars-December 1948, Paul Chargueraud, Director of UNECE’s Transport Division, ‘International Cooperation for Improved European Transport’, 2 November 1948.

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thus not only a practical goal but carried a symbolic meaning. The UNECE in turn became a key site for international cooperation on large-scale infrastructure projects, for instance in electricity networks or river development.57 The Inland Transport Committee (ITC) quickly became the busiest unit of UNECE activity. Its accomplishments are some of the most visible results of the UNECE’s work during the Cold War period. They include the standardised European highway network of E-Roads, the Transports Internationaux Routiers (TIR) scheme abolishing customs duties for goods in transit, and the EUROP-pool for railway wagons.58 The E-Road network is an example that best illustrates the mode of cooperation at the UNECE.59 The construction of a highway system for Europe was anticipated already in 1948. The Declaration on the Construction of Main International Traffic Arteries in 1950 sketched a system that would connect Europe from Scandinavia to Sicily. Non-­ governmental organisations (NGOs), such as the International Road Federation (IRF), were heavily involved in the process from the start, enjoying consultative status in the UN. Since the UNECE could not provide funds for highway construction, its service was limited to the coordination of national construction programmes. Studies by the UNECE Secretariat’s Research Division set the agenda for the meetings of transport experts sent by their governments. These experts agreed on the route of the network but also on factors such as the minimum width of lanes and distances between gas stations and emergency telephones. Progress was slow but consistent, and gradually more UNECE member states became involved. Green plates with white numbers signalling the E-routes became 57  Vincent Lagendijk, Electrifying Europe. The Power of Europe in the Construction of Electricity Networks (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2008); Vincent Lagendijk, ‘Divided Development: Post-War Ideas on River Utilisation and Their Influence on the Development of the Danube’, The International History Review 37, no. 1 (2015): 80–98; Lagendijk, ‘The Structure of Power’. 58  Kiran Klaus Patel and Johan Schot, ‘Twisted Paths to European Integration: Comparing Agriculture and Transport Policies in a Transnational Perspective’, Contemporary European History 20, no. 4 (2011): 337–57. 59  Frank Schipper has published widely on international organizations and European road mobility, see Frank Schipper, ‘All Roads Lead to Europe: The E-Road Network 1950–1970’, T2M Conference Working Document (Paris: Transnational Infrastructures of Europe, 2006); Frank Schipper, ‘Changing the Face of Europe: European Road Mobility During the Marshall Plan Years’, The Journal of Transport History 28, no. 2 (2007): 211–28; Frank Schipper, Driving Europe: Building Europe on Roads in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008).

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a familiar sight along European highways. It is perhaps telling that when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the E-Road system already connected Lisbon and Moscow. The longest route today is the E40, stretching from Calais in northern France to the Kazakh-Chinese border.

The UNECE and East-West Cooperation The advent of the Cold War, as mentioned above, frustrated the UNECE’s pan-European ambitions from the start. Eastern bloc countries were forced to abstain from most of the technical work in the UNECE’s committees between 1948 and 1954. Their participation in UNECE committees came to a dramatic halt with the murder of Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk in March 1948, shortly before the UNECE’s third session. Masaryk had represented his country at the first two UNECE sessions, where he was one of the most prolific delegates.60 The son of Czechoslovakia’s first elected president, Masaryk was the only member of the National Front government who did not resign after the communist coup of February 1948. Two weeks later, a day before he was set to leave for London, Masaryk was found dead in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry in Prague.61 His death marked a turning point in East-West relations, as Masaryk had been a key advocate of Czechoslovakia joining the Marshall Plan and maintaining close ties with the West. After Masaryk’s death, the Eastern countries did not fully take part in the UNECE’s work again until 1954.62 The absence of Eastern representatives in the UNECE’s committees further increased the problem of duplication of efforts with the OEEC, as active membership in the technical committees of both venues was now effectively Western. Despite Western competition and initial Eastern absenteeism, however, as we have seen the UNECE managed to accomplish some remarkable feats of East-West cooperation. Both sides began to integrate economically within their respective blocs, rendering the political division between them even more tangible. But while both blocs were consolidating their ranks, economic bloc 60  ARBARK/Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/4/2/2: Mars-December 1948, ‘Opening remarks of the Executive Secretary concerning Minister Jan Masaryk’s death at the first meeting of the Manpower Sub-Committee’, 11 March 1948. 61  ARBARK/Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/4/2/2: Mars-December 1948, Gunnar Myrdal to Jan Masaryk, 9 March 1948. 62  Melvin M. Fagen, ‘Gunnar Myrdal and the Shaping of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’, Coexistence 25 (1988): 427–35.

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formation was not unopposed. Myrdal was outspoken in his refusal to accept ‘this abnormal state of affairs’ and the ‘perverse but effective cooperation between those on each of the two sides who sought to solidify the blocs against each other’.63 The UNECE was now stylised as a ‘bridge’ connecting the two blocs. It maintained an important role as a place where officials from both sides of the Iron Curtain continued to meet on economic issues. ‘UNECE gained support from the European reaction against […] the cold war which gave it an importance above and beyond its practical achievements’ a British scholar wrote in 1957; ‘it seemed to be one of the few remaining bridges between east and west’.64 Even in the zenith of tension during the Korean War of 1950–53, Myrdal was convinced that such a bridge ‘must be built, even if no-one crosses it for the time being’, framing UNECE as a reserve instrument for détente in the future.65 For Myrdal and his UNECE Secretariat, economic cooperation between East and West ultimately boiled down to an increase in East-West trade. UNECE officials described East-West trade as their ‘Big Idea’, the key issue defining the organisation.66 They saw trade as the foundation for any further reconciliation between the blocs as well as for Europe’s shared prosperity. In a lecture before Soviet economists in Moscow, Myrdal insisted that intra-European trade can be regarded as the common denominator of East-­ West economic co-operation. Healthy, normal and growing commercial exchanges between countries with different economic and social systems constitute, if not an absolute pre-condition, at least a most necessary material basis on which other types of contacts between east and west European countries can develop. It is through trade that the advantages inherent in the international division of labour accrue and economic advantages can be extended across frontiers.67

 Myrdal, ‘Twenty Years of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’, 617.   David Wightman, ‘East-West Cooperation and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’, International Organization 11, no. 1 (1957): 1–12, here 2. 65   Quoted in ARBARK/Václav Kostelecký papers/3332/4/3/5: Övriga handlingar rörande UNECE, Anika de la Grandville to Václav Kostelecký, 28 April 1980. 66  Berthelot, Unity and Diversity, 64. 67  UNOG/ARR/14/1360/Box 1/Folder Gunnar Myrdal Important, Transcript of lecture given under the auspices of the Institute of Economic of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, ‘The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe as an Organ of All-European Economic Co-Operation’, 9 March 1956. 63 64

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Its East-West trade agenda gathered momentum only after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin’s death provided Myrdal with the necessary spark to resume the UNECE’s bridging role of championing trade ties between East and West. Prior to this, the UNECE had been on the brink of collapse, its purpose seemingly superseded by the OEEC and ECSC and support of key member states quickly draining away.68 Just weeks after Stalin’s death, however, the UNECE hosted a successful East-West trade consultation, and Eastern European delegations returned to its technical committees for the first time since 1948. Myrdal called the 1953 trade consultation ‘one of the most important and significant meetings organized under UNECE auspices’.69 The resumption of its work soon thereafter continued despite subsequent crises such as Suez and the Hungarian revolution of 1956. Crucial in this respect were the personal contacts developed between officials from East and West within the framework of the UNECE. This meant there was no repetition of the complete breakdown in the UNECE’s East-West nexus as had been the case in the aftermath of the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. As political scientist Jean Siotis put it in 1967, the ‘UNECE has been one of the most effective agents for the maintenance and development of the few “bridges” between East and West […] at a time when the division was taken for granted and viewed by many as a permanent feature of the European system’.70 Historian Vincent Lagendijk agrees that by the mid-1960s the UNECE’s ‘attempts to bridge the Cold War divides […] began to bear fruit. […] Myrdal’s Secretariat had created an organizational structure that could act as a bridge between East and West. Now the international political situation, characterized by détente, provided the circumstances under which this bridge came in use.’71

68  Daniel Stinsky, ‘A Bridge between East and West? Gunnar Myrdal and the UN Economic Commission for Europe, 1947–1957’, in Sandrine Kott, Michel Christian and Ondrej Matejka (eds.), Models of Economic and Social Planning in Cold War Europe. Competition, Cooperation, Circulations, 1950s–1970s (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018). 69  ARBARK/Václav Kostlelecký papers/3332/4/2/5: Årslagda handlingar enligt arkivplan 1951–55, ‘Speech by the Executive Secretary of the UNECE at the 716th Meeting of ECOSOC’, 8 July 1953. 70  Jean Siotis, ‘UNECE in the Emerging European System’, International Conciliation, no. 561 (1967): 5–72, here 6. 71  Lagendijk, ‘The Structure of Power’, 63.

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Conclusions ‘The habit of measuring everything in terms of whether it “solves the problem of Europe”’, Myrdal wrote in 1956—just a year before the signing of the Treaty of Rome that would expand the ECSC into the European Economic Community (EEC)—‘has caused us to underestimate the importance of a large amount of practical, detailed work continuously carried out in many intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations’. He continued: Unnoticed by the big publicity machines, modest results have been reached in a large number of technical projects which, measured by any historical standards, have meant some real progress towards a closer integration of Europe, though in limited fields. On that technical level much is accomplished every year and every month: little by little it can help to turn the tide from increased autarky towards internationalism. Much more could be accomplished if some of the energy […] could be made available for these practical tasks. There is a chance, to take one important example, for the Coal and Steel Community, if it survives effectively, to do a real and much-­ needed job on this technical level, and not simply to be the catalyst for schemes of a European superstate.72

As Myrdal saw things, European integration was therefore never about grand political declarations. What instead really mattered was the need to reverse the persistent trend towards national autarky that had characterised international economic relations since the start of the First World War. For this to happen, according to Myrdal at least, integration was a device that ought to be driven by detailed technical questions; it was essentially incremental, achieved steadily, step by step, sector by sector. And it required more than one organisation: his and the UNECE’s claim on European economic cooperation was thus never absolute. Myrdal instead acknowledged that the burden of protecting against the return of interstate antagonisms was one that should rest on several shoulders. The UNECE was just one necessary cog in a much bigger machine. What can we learn by revisiting the UNECE and placing it in the history of post-1945 European integration? How does the story of the integration process change if, as has been done here, the UNECE is included? 72  Gunnar Myrdal, An International Economy. Problems and Prospects, Rich Lands and Poor (New York: Harper & Sons, 1956), 68.

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Three points stand out. First, the UNECE shows that definitions of ‘Europe’ shifted, and became narrower well before the emergence of the EEC in 1957. While the UN was initially conceptualised as a universal organisation that expressly rejected regionalism, it was soon transformed into an overarching framework encompassing regional economic cooperation. The UNECE was the IO that introduced ‘Europe’ as a conceptual and practical category for economic cooperation into the post-1945 international system. The pan-European, inclusive character of the UNECE was in turn challenged by the OEEC’s exclusivity as a predominantly ‘Western European’ body. The OEEC’s ‘Western Europe’ was then challenged from within by the six ECSC states. The ECSC and its successor organisations soon became inextricably linked with, and seen as most clearly embodying, ‘European integration’. Second, while public and scholarly attention has very much focused on the EU and its direct predecessors, other older venues like the UNECE and OEEC were never discarded as structures of economic cooperation. Their work on trade liberalisation, norms and regulations, and in various infrastructure projects, has been dubbed the ‘hidden integration’ of Europe by historians of technology. Hidden integration shows that European integration is multifaceted as well as multi-sited. The EC/EU was neither the first nor the only international framework within which crucial work on economic and trade integration in Europe took place. Third, revisiting the creation and history of the UNECE shows that economic contact between East and West never fully broke off and that an institutional framework was consciously maintained during the emerging tensions of the early Cold War. Organisations like the UNECE provided a forum where bloc discipline in the early Cold War was established and showcased, but also where the two blocs continued to meet on economic issues. The UNECE in particular was framed as a ‘reserve’ organisation for the future, a strategy that eventually paid off after Stalin’s death when there was a return to limited but nevertheless regular economic cooperation across the Iron Curtain. Altogether, the UNECE emerges as an alternative vision of European integration ‘beyond Brussels’, one that was all-European, intergovernmental and embedded into the global framework of the UN. Importantly, it was never replaced or consumed by the more successful models of exclusive Western European cooperation. Instead, it developed useful niches of international technical cooperation which saw it continue its work alongside the EEC and, in the process, to influence the ongoing process of European unity. The UNECE, then, played its role in bringing European

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states together and as such deserves to be seen as an important player in post-1945 European politics. But the historiography should not stop at highlighting the contribution of organisations like the UNECE. Daniel Speich Chassé has identified at least 22 international organisations ‘founded during the first 15 years after the Second World War that had a certain proximity to economic knowledge and expertise and were active on the European continent’. Among this number were more prominent ones like the Council of Europe, but also less obvious examples such as the British-American occupation zones in Germany (the so-called Bizone) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).73 Globally, some 100 international organisations were newly created between 1945 and 1948.74 Scholars of European integration should learn to see the EC/EU as part, albeit a very important part, of a much broader trend towards political and economic convergence. Broadening the perspective of European integration history to venues and actors outside the immediate EC/EU framework is hence a substantial research agenda.

73  Daniel Speich Chassé, ‘Towards a Global History of the Marshall Plan: European PostWar Reconstruction and the Rise of Development Economic Expertise’, in Christian Grabas and Alexander Nützenadel (eds.), Industrial Policy in Europe after 1945: Wealth, Power and Economic Development in the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 74  Patel, ‘Provincialising European Union’, 652.

CHAPTER 3

Inventing a ‘European Space of Discussions’: The UEFA-EBU Relationship, c.1950s–1970s Philippe Vonnard

On 29 May 1968, Manchester United beat Benfica Lisbon in a memorable final, winning the European Champions Clubs’ Cup (ECCC)—the most important European football competition then organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). It was, however, not only the 92,000 spectators present during the pleasant spring evening at

The author wishes to thank the editors for their help and support in the writing of this chapter, and Leonard Laborie for the discussions on this topic. A complementary paper (co-written with Léonard Laborie) on UEFA-EBU relations has previously been published in 20 & 21 siècles. Revue d’histoire 141, no. 2 (2019) under the title: ‘L’invention d’un rendez-vous médiatique européen. L’UEFA, l’UER et la retransmission de la Coupe des clubs champions européens (1956–1968)’. This research has been supported by a mobility grant funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). P. Vonnard (*) University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_3

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Wembley Stadium that were able to appreciate the incredible game won 4-1 by United in extra time. Millions of European citizens were also able to watch the match on their television sets, the live broadcast being shown in nearly twenty countries.1 The final of the ECCC was doubtless one of the two most important events shown on the Eurovision network—originally launched by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in 1954—at the time, along with that year’s Eurovision Song Contest. And yet unlike the Song Contest, which excluded the countries of Eastern Europe, football did not reproduce the broader geopolitical East-West division. Instead, football clubs from the two blocs participated on an equal footing in all UEFA competitions.2 Established in 1954, UEFA—composed of the national football associations of each member country—emerged as just one of the numerous organisations uniting European states that sprung up in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War. Its particularity, as mentioned, was that it was composed of 33 national associations drawn from all parts of Europe. Thus, UEFA was one of the few organisations that managed to transcend the Iron Curtain, and quickly created European competitions within which both individual clubs and national teams could participate. By implication, UEFA produced what might be termed long-­term transnational football exchanges and a pan-European cultural ‘collective consciousness’.3 Due to their popularity, these competitions inevitably drew interest from other advocates of (Western) European unity—including Jean Monnet’s European Movement and, in following decades, some from inside the European Economic Community (EEC)—who saw football as a vector of ‘European’ identity. However, national associations and UEFA jealously guarded their prerogative to manage football matches and wanted to keep the administration of European football exchanges under their control. Thus, numerous projects were eventually abandoned because no compromise could be found between UEFA and other European bodies.4 1  In the French television newspaper, Tele-magazine, this match was denoted with two stars indicating a must-watch programme. The most exciting programmes received three stars. 2  A song contest, Intervision, was also organised by the International Broadcasting Union (IBU) composed of countries from the Eastern bloc. 3  Jürgen Mittag and Philippe Vonnard, ‘The Role of Societal Actors in Shaping a PanEuropean Consciousness: UEFA and the Overcoming of Cold War Tensions, 1954–1959’, Sport in History 37, no. 3 (2017): 332–52. 4  See for instance: Philippe Vonnard, ‘“Populariser davantage l’idée européenne par le sport.” La CEE, l’UEFA et le projet de Coupe du marché commun (1966–1968)’, Journal of European Integration History 24, no. 2 (2018): 353–70.

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That said, one European organisation did manage to engage in discussions, and finally reach an agreement, with UEFA: the EBU. Created in 1950, the EBU comprised public service television broadcasters from the Western bloc and neutral countries, and saw as one of its goals that of using television to develop greater cooperation and cultural understanding within its own members and with Eastern bloc countries. Even though television broadcasters preferred to air educational, religious or cultural programmes, it quickly proved evident that sports would have a much broader appeal for the general public. The EBU thus set about televising matches through its Eurovision television network as a key way of reaching its broader aims. This idea was first realised when in 1954 half of the programmes shown on Eurovision consisted of live broadcast matches of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) men’s World Cup played in Switzerland. By the close of the 1960s, around 70 per cent of all Eurovision annual programming comprised sporting events.5 Football was at the core of these events. And yet, due both to the concerns of UEFA over the administration of the matches and the fears of football promoters who thought that television could decrease the number of spectators in the stadium, it was not easy for UEFA and the EBU to find a compromise.6 It is the unknown story of how and why they eventually succeeded in doing so that I want to describe in this chapter, using negotiations over the televising of ECCC matches as a prime case study. At one level, this is interesting because it confirms Kiran Klaus Patel’s argument that ‘Europe’ has been built ‘by multiple transnational and international actors at various stages’; integration in this sense can be seen to include more than joint action in the economic, military or political realms.7 At another level, it allows us to probe another example of inter-­ organisational relations, a field of research that is still in its relative infancy.8 5  Patrick Alvès, ‘L’Union européenne de radiodiffusion (1950–1969)’, in Marie-Françoise Lévy and Marie-Noëlle Sicard (eds.), Les lucarnes de l’Europe. Télévisions, cultures, identités, 1945–2000 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008), 47–71, here 61. 6  At the time, match-day attendance was by far the most important income stream for football clubs. 7  Kiran K. Patel, ‘Provincialising European union: Co-operation and Integration in Europe in a Historical Perspective’, Contemporary European History 22, no. 4 (2013): 649–73, here 651. See also Laurent Warlouzet, ‘Dépasser la crise de l’histoire de l’intégration européenne’, Politique européenne 44, no. 2 (2014): 98–122. 8   See Joachim Koops and Rafael Biermann (eds.), Palgrave Handbook of InterOrganizational Relations in World Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). See also, Lorenzo Mechi, Guia Migani and Francesco Petrini (eds.), Networks of Global Governance:

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To my knowledge, only two scholars have investigated the UEFA and EBU relationship. In a text published in 2013, Jürgen Mittag and Jörg-­ Uwe Nieland offered an overview of the links between the two organisations from the 1950s to the contemporary period.9 Mainly based on the reading of newspapers, this chapter can nevertheless be considered as a first step in meeting appeals for further research on the topic, and is the first to cover the period from the 1950s to the 1970s in detail. More recently, Jean-Christophe Meyer has also written about the relationship between EBU top leaders and football, although this article centres solely on the broadcasting of the 1954 World Cup.10 The current chapter is thus a complement to ongoing studies of the topic.11 To do so, it makes extensive use of documents from UEFA’s archives, including the minutes and correspondences of its executive and television (TV) committees and the UEFA general assembly, as well as the EBU Official Bulletin (1950–57) and the later EBU Official Review (1958–70).12 In addition, it draws on articles from the weekly sports magazine France Football and of the TV programme magazine Télé-Magazine covering the entire period under review. Finally, interviews have been conducted with Hans Bangerter, the UEFA Secretary General from 1960 to 1989, and Gerhardt Aigner, his successor from 1989 to 2002. The chapter proceeds in a chronological fashion. The first part will briefly give some information on the creation of the EBU and UEFA and delineate the reasons that explain in more detail why these two bodies International Organisations and European Integration in a Historical Perspective (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014); Wolfram Kaiser and Kiran K.  Patel, ‘Multiple Connections in European Co-operation: International Organizations, Policy Ideas, Practices and Transfers 1967–92’, European Review of History 24, no. 3 (2017): 337–57. 9  Jürgen Mittag and Jörg-Uwe Nieland, ‘Auf der Suche nach Gesamteuropa: UEFA und EBU als Impulsgeber der Europäisierung des Sports’, in Christoph Bertling and Evelyn Mertin (eds.), Freunde oder Feinde? Sportberichterstattung in Ost und West während des Kalten Krieges (Gütersloh: Medienfabrik Gütersloh, 2013), 208–29. 10  Jean-Christophe Meyer, ‘La fondation du “Grand Stade”. De la triomphale retransmission en direct de la Coupe du monde 1954 et de ses avatars dans les pays membres de l’Eurovision (1954–1958)’, Traverse. Revue d’histoire 23, no. 1 (2016): 49–59. 11  A complementary paper (co-written with Léonard Laborie) on UEFA-EBU relations has previously been published in 20 & 21 siècles. Revue d’histoire 141, no. 2 (2019) under the title: ‘L’invention d’un rendez-vous médiatique européen. L’UEFA, l’UER et la retransmission de la Coupe des clubs champions européens (1956–1968). 12  The EBU’s archives are not currently open to the public. The official Bulletin gives a lot of information on the activities of the EBU and provides scholars with the minutes of the annual general assembly.

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chose to collaborate. The second part will then focus on the preliminary discussion between the EBU and UEFA and, in particular, will explain why its leaders failed to reach agreement between 1955 and 1960. The third part will subsequently describe why during the 1960s leading officials from both organisations succeeded in signing an agreement around televising the final of the ECCC and briefly explore the consequences of this agreement for European television, European football and European unity.

Two Europes, One Similar Goal? The EBU and UEFA were each created during an intense period of institution-­building after the Second World War. Their emergence both revealed and contributed to the post-war development of what the French historian Robert Frank has called ‘l’Europe-organisation’; that is, the establishment in the late 1940s and 1950s of numerous European bodies to oversee, regulate or coordinate relations in different fields.13 The EBU, for its part, also emerged during a golden age of television. Despite mass-­produced television sets first appearing in the 1930s, it was only in the 1950s that their use started to become widespread, and with this came the creation in several countries of the first state-managed channels. However, the EBU’s foundation further owed a good deal to the emerging geopolitical division of post-war Europe. For its history in fact stretches back to that of another entity: the International Broadcasting Union (IBU). It was the Cold War that subsequently forced broadcasters from the Western bloc to leave and establish the EBU anew, with an administrative headquarters being setup in Geneva alongside a technical office in Brussels. The countries of the Eastern bloc by contrast stayed inside the IBU, with its headquarters relocating to Prague.14 Its foundational charter outlined the EBU’s main objectives as being to help defend its members’ interests by lobbying at an 13  This concept emphasises the creation of several European organisations in different fields. Robert Frank, ‘Les débats sur l’élargissement de l’Europe avant l’Élargissement’, in Gilles Pécout (ed.), Penser les frontières de l’Europe du XIXe au XXe siècle. Elargissement et union: approches historiques (Paris: PUF, 2004), 179–96, here 180–1. 14  On the creation of the EBU see Christian Heinrich-Franke, ‘Creating Transnationality through an International Organization? The European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) Television Programme Activities’, in Andreas Fickers and Claire Johnson (eds.), Transnational Television History: A Comparative Approach (London: Routledge, 2012), 33–47.

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international level for a favourable framework within which to produce television content, to discuss problems facing individual national broadcasters domestically, and to strengthen cooperation and develop technical relations between its members. For the main EBU promoters, including the director of the government-­ run French television network, Jean D’Arcy, the later Swiss Director of Eurovision, Marcel Bezençon, and the controller of programming at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Cecil McGovern, this last point—inter-broadcaster exchanges—were always deemed important. Of course, they brought clear organisational gains. Cooperation could for instance help develop the popularity of television—a still embryonic technology—and reduce the costs of production by showing programmes in their own country that had been produced elsewhere. The year 1953 saw one of the first major outcomes of this cooperation when eight EBU member countries broadcast the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. This path of cooperation continued into 1954 with the organisation of a ‘summer season of European television exchanges’.15 This consisted of the simultaneous broadcast of twenty events to viewers in Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland throughout the months of June and July. This experience, which would be later formalised as Eurovision, consisted of ‘a connection between the various broadcasting organisations on the continent using radio relays allowing the circulation and exchange of images’.16 But there is also good reason to suspect that in promoting this sort of interaction, television executives like D’Arcy, Bezençon and McGovern were at least in part motivated by a desire to help foster greater understanding and cooperation in a continent ripped apart by both the Second World War and increasingly the Cold War. The currently available archival material alone has little to say about this question. What we do know is that these industry leaders each had extensive experience in the industry and had prior form in terms of promoting linkages between national broadcasters. During the 1930s, for example, many worked for their respective national radio stations, a medium which often sought out international exchanges and resulted in several broadcasters playing shared

 ‘Activités de l’U.E.R.’, Bulletin de documentation et d’information 24, no. 5 (1954): 285.  Alvès, ‘L’Union européenne de radiodiffusion’, 51.

15 16

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recordings of the European concert experience.17 In turn, it is possible to argue that, as engineers or scientists, EBU leaders were part of the ‘technocratic internationalism’ described elsewhere by Johan Shot and Vincent Lagendijk.18 We also know that the majority of these leaders were born just before the First World War and did appear highly conscious not only of their ability to help push common technical standards but also how, by cooperating among themselves, their organisations could spread cultural norms across different societies. As Suzanne Lommers has put it, national broadcasters started to devise informal benchmarks for programmes that were deemed to demonstrate to listeners that they ‘belong[ed] to a European and civilized community that reached beyond their national boundaries’.19 Little wonder then that when celebrating the fifth anniversary of Eurovision in 1959, the first EBU Chair, Ian Jacob, wrote in the EBU Official Bulletin that the ‘programme exchanges [were] links in this chain of international understanding on which our common future is so heavily dependent’.20 One page later, Bezençon indicated that contact between broadcasters within the confines of the EBU had allowed viewers to develop ‘a more generalised taste for human beings; the borders of nationalisms [has] become less thick, the air from the open sea circulates more easily’.21 The special committee in charge of Eurovision—the so-called programme commission—quickly found that football could play a role in these transnational programme exchanges. In addition to its popularity and its limited political content, the game could be easily distributed. Unlike other sports such as baseball and downhill skiing, the pitch could also easily be captured with just one or two cameras mounted at the top of the stadium. Moreover, compared to basketball or ice hockey, football was 17  Léonard Laborie and Suzanne Lommers, ‘Les concerts européens à la radio dans l’entredeux-guerres. Mise en onde d’une métaphore diplomatique’, Le Temps des médias 11, no. 2 (2008): 110–25. 18  Johan Shot and Vincent Lagendijk, ‘Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years: Building Europe on Motorways and Electricity Networks’, Journal of Modern European History 6, no. 2 (2008): 196–217. See also, Wolfram Kaiser and Johan Schot, Writing the Rules for Europe. Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 19  Suzanne Lommers, ‘The Quality of High-Culture Broadcasting’, Inventing Europe, available at http://www.inventingeurope.eu/story/the-quality-of-high-culture-broadcasting (accessed 30 September 2019). 20  ‘Message du président de l’Union’, Revue de l’UER. Cahier B 56 (July 1959): 2. 21  ‘L’Eurovision? Une idée simple qui réussit’, Revue de l’UER. Cahier B 56 (July 1959): 5.

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less rapid and thus easier to film. Arguably as if not more important, was that football seemed the perfect tool in terms of aiding West-West and perhaps even East-West cooperation. For the game could be ‘understood’ by all audiences, no matter whether or not they shared the same language, culture or form of government. The importance attributed to football was well revealed by the central place given to the 1954 men’s football World Cup in the initial summer exchanges of Eurovision.22 Being the first competition on European territory since 1938, the 1954 World Cup played in Switzerland was a major event for European football teams and fans alike. After discussions between the EBU and FIFA, an agreement was signed to broadcast further matches. Finally, seven countries chose to show the competition, and ‘ten games including the semi-finals and finals’—a third of the total matches—were available to be watched live on TV.23 The 1954 World Cup was a pivotal moment for European football. For it came at a time when there was intense debate about whether to ‘continentalise’ FIFA by organising the administration of football on a regional rather than global basis. The decision to do so—with UEFA becoming one of six regional confederations within the framework of FIFA—was eventually taken at the latter’s extraordinary congress held in Paris in November 1953.24 But this would have major consequences: the new confederation would cover all of Europe, including national federations from the eastern side of the Iron Curtain. National football bodies from the western portion of the continent thus found themselves in a rather novel situation of being members of an organisation that, unlike most others, would transverse the East-West divide. UEFA’s foundational meeting in Basel in June 1954 was thus of significance far beyond the domain of football. For their part, the presence of Eastern bloc countries, especially the Soviet Union, in Basel was largely motivated by concerns over being marginalised within the new confederation, although political changes in the Soviet Union following the death of Joseph Stalin had also opened the

22  ‘Activités de l’UER’, Bulletin de documentation et d’information 20, no. 4 (1953): 503. All these points are particularly emphasized by Jean-Christophe Meyer in his paper ‘La fondation du “Grand Stade”’, here 50–51. 23  Paul Dietschy, Histoire du football (Paris: Perrin, 2010), 540. 24  This reorganisation was agreed as a response to changes in international relations following the Second World War and the on-going decolonisation process that increased the number of FIFA members. On this process see Philippe Vonnard, Creating a United Europe of Football. The Formation of UEFA (1949-1961) (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2020).

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way for a renewal of sporting contact across the Cold War divide.25 Looked at in this way, the formation of UEFA was not only eased thanks to the fact that openings for East-West dialogue were beginning to emerge, but was itself indicative of this new climate of cooperation. Such a climate was reflected in the Basel meeting itself when the general principles that would underlie the development of ‘European’ football were agreed with impressive speed. After only a few hours of discussion in Basel, the delegates likewise agreed to retain UEFA as Europe’s sole football governing body.26 Like many EBU figures, the majority of UEFA’s leaders were also born before the First World War or in the years immediately following its end. And implicit in many of their statements made during or in the months and years after the Basel meeting was the desire to create, or recreate, European harmony via football. In fact, since at least the Belle Epoque numerous international exchanges between football teams and supporters had taken place.27 The result was the building of a European community of leaders who understood and worked closely with one another.28 This was the environment in which UEFA’s main proponents came to share the idea that they could establish exchanges that went beyond the Cold War context. In the 1954 Basel meeting, the Swiss delegate Ernst Thommen, who played a major role in the creation of UEFA, even indicated to his colleagues that he wished for the meeting to set ‘an example of a United Europe’.29

25  On the Soviet sport diplomacy during the 1950s, following the pioneer study conducted by Robert Edelman, see the recent publications Jenfier Parks, The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sport Bureaucracy, and the Cold War: Red Sport, Red Tape (Lexington Books, 2016), chapter 1; Yannick Deschamps, ‘Échanges et contacts sportifs entre la France et l’URSS à l’aube de la guerre froide: les prémices d’une diplomatie sportive bilatérale (1947–1953)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 277, no. 1 (2020): 119–35; Sylvain Dufraisse, ‘Au-delà de la “machine rouge”: implications soviétiques dans la guerre froide sportive’, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 277, no. 1 (2020): 73–90. 26   Union of European Football Associations Archive (hereafter UEFAA), Box RM00000749, Minutes of the European associations assembly, 15 June 1954. 27  Paul Dietschy, ‘Football during the Belle-Epoque: The first “Europe du football” (1903–1914)’, in Philippe Vonnard, Grégory Quin and Nicolas Bancel (eds.), Building Europe with the Ball: Turning Points in the Europeanization of Football, 1905–1995 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2016), 21–51. 28  Vonnard, Creating a United Europe of Football, Chapters 4 and 5. 29   UEFAA/Box RM00000749, Minutes of the European associations assembly, 15 June 1954.

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From the start, UEFA held a general assembly each year, widely seen as an opportunity for more than 70–90 leading figures from all European football associations to meet each other and share views about the game. In this way, the federation worked as a ‘site’ for European exchanges between many actors in European football because these meetings were also opportunities for dialogue with numerous European journalists and club presidents, who likewise attended the assembly.30 In addition to promoting transnational exchanges in football, the UEFA assembly quickly emerged as a basis from which to lobby for European football interests on an international scale. The principal objective of its top leaders was to defend European interests across the football field—notably inside FIFA— but also outside, including towards other European bodies.31

Establishing European Exchanges A few weeks after the 1954 World Cup, Bezençon stressed the importance of the event for the raison d’être of Eurovision. He pointed out that if the month of ‘June had been chosen for the first season of Eurovision exchanges, it was due to the World Cup’.32 Therefore, in the mid-1950s television promoters tried to engage in discussions with the national and international football associations with a view to football becoming a more permanent feature of Eurovision programming. If UEFA was far from being an authoritative voice during its first months, the body would quickly develop. At precisely the time that the EBU grew interested in televising European football games, so UEFA’s leaders grew more confident in discussing the same issue. Already at the first UEFA general assembly in Vienna in March 1955 delegates exchanged views about the position to adopt towards televising games. A majority of national football bodies were reluctant to over-broadcast the matches and had one main grievance with the small screen: television was likely to cause a decrease in stadium attendance. For example, in the case of bad weather 30  Philippe Vonnard and Kevin Tallec Marston, ‘Building bridges between Separated Europeans: The Role of UEFA’s Competitions in East-West Exchanges (1955–1964)’, in Philippe Vonnard, Nicola Sbetti and Grégory Quin (eds.), Beyond Boycotts. Sport During the Cold War in Europe (De Gruyter: Oldenburg, 2017), 85–109. 31  UEFAA/Box RM00000749, Minutes of the UEFA Executive Committee meetings, 29 and 30 October 1954. 32  ‘L’Eurovision est-elle un mythe?’, Bulletin de documentation et d’information 27, no. 5 (1954): 590.

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delegates thought that the public would rather stay at home to see the match on TV instead of going to the stadium. They also expressed concerns about timetabling conflicts, with games (especially international matches) due to be broadcast on television thought likely to attract more attention than ones played in local stadiums.33 This explains why delegates of national associations decided unanimously to establish a procedure under UEFA’s control designed to regulate the broadcasting of football matches in the form of the so-called Vienna Agreement. It is interesting to note that in UEFA, a pan-European body comprising countries that were otherwise political and ideological opposites, television seemed to be one topic that could create a consensus between members. UEFA’s first European Champion Clubs’ Cup competition, due to take place over the 1955–56 season, fostered particular interest from the EBU. In fact, with sixteen clubs from sixteen countries due to take part in the first tournament, expanding to incorporate twenty-two countries for the second, the ECCC was from the start considered an incredible success both in terms of UEFA’s organisational capacity and for its ability to attract attention from outside actors.34 Extensive media coverage of the tournament, combined with the fact that it appeared to create links that many thought impossible given the international dimension of the Cold War, meant that for many football and television leaders this was precisely the sort of opportunity to organise exchanges that did not strictly follow international political relations. One game in particular exemplified this point—the quarter-final leg played between the Spanish team Real Madrid and the Serbian side Partizan Belgrade—notable for the fact that the team’s respective countries had not had diplomatic relations for 22 years. The mixture of dramatic encounters like this, and the potential political and economic implications of European football matches of this scale, 33  UEFAA/Box RM00005984, Minutes of the UEFA Assembly, 2 March 1955. See also  Richard Haynes, ‘A Pageant of Sound and Vision: Football’s Relationship with Television, 1936–60’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 15, no. 1 (1998): 211–26; Philippe Tétart, ‘Sport et télévision: à l’origine d’une relation siamoise (1948–1954)’, in Yohann Fortune and Jean-Marc Lemonnier (eds.), Reconstructions physique et sportive en France sous la IVe République (1946–1958) (Caen: PUC, 2018), 127–59. 34  Philippe Vonnard, ‘A Competition that Shook European Football: The Origins of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup, 1954–1955’, Sport in History 34, no. 4 (2014): 595–619. Throughout the Cold War one third of all ECCC games comprised East-West opposition. That corresponded to, on average,  10–15 games played a year  in  the 1950s and 15–20 games a year in the 1960s–1980s.

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quickly interested EBU leaders keen to add to the success of the Eurovision Song Contest.35 In March 1956, a first meeting was hence organised between the UEFA executive committee members and a delegation from the EBU. After discussion, the leaderships agreed to build a partnership between the two entities ‘in the light of their respective interests.’36 Nevertheless, negotiations were difficult, not least since UEFA leaders wanted to receive revenues for the broadcasting of ECCC matches.37 It was decided that a part of this money would serve as compensation for the clubs due to the loss of spectators. Furthermore, UEFA’s top officials began to recognise that they could take advantage of the broadcasting of ECCC matches to develop their organisation. Thus, they proposed deducting a small sum from the TV rights in order to finance UEFA’s broader activities such as youth football. A few days after the 1956 congress, the final of the ECCC amounted to a first great European football event. In fact, the match—between Stade de Reims and Real Madrid—played that evening in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium was broadcast live by the Eurovision network in several countries, the full game being shown in France and the second half in West Germany and Switzerland. Nearly two million viewers watched the broadcast of the match in France,38 which inspired journalists like Marcel Leclerc, Director of the Télé-programme magazine newspaper, to write: ‘In a nutshell, that night, television gained a legitimate place. Let us repeat: several million people applauded both the winners and, perhaps unconsciously, the incredible magic, the disproportionate power of television.’39 Despite this enthusiasm, UEFA’s financial conditions were not accepted by the EBU.40 By mid-1956, and despite their top leaders having shown a clear interest in cooperation, talks for an agreement consequently collapsed. Different factors in the following months then demanded a reassessment of this situation. For while there was not a formal agreement 35  On this event, see Ivan Raykoff and Robert Deam (eds.), A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007). 36  UEFAA/Box RM00000749, Minutes of the UEFA Executive Committee meetings, 19 March 1956. 37  UEFAA/Box RM00005984, Minutes of the UEFA Assembly, 8 June 1956. 38  This number comes from L’Equipe: ‘Apothéose de la première Coupe d’Europe des clubs, ce soir, au Parc (20 h30) devant 40.000 spectateurs et … deux millions de téléspectateurs. Reims et Kopa sont plus alertes mais le Real Madrid a di Stefano!’, L’Equipe, 13 June 1956. 39  ‘Une fenêtre ouverte sur le monde!’, Télévision programme Magazine 35 (1956): 1. 40  UEFAA/Box RM00000749, Minutes of the UEFA Executive Committee meetings, 28 June 1956.

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between UEFA and the EBU, some ECCC matches were still broadcast live on national television networks. From 1957 the regulation of the competition consequently became a point of contention between broadcasters, and in the process established UEFA’s financial prowess since it received 2 per cent of total match receipts. This financial gain helped to legitimise its existence—notably within FIFA—and pushed UEFA’s leading officials to begin devising ways of reaching agreements elsewhere with interested television promoters. For the EBU, by contrast, its inability to take control of European football matches early on was immediately thought of as a missed opportunity. In addition to the development of Eurovision itself, reaching an agreement with UEFA offered the promise of becoming a major actor in Western European television and a powerful force in Eastern Europe too, and even held out the opportunity to compete with national commercial broadcasters.41 For the time being, though, such opportunities were on hold. This did not bring a complete stop to UEFA-EBU meetings, and both organisations took measures to engage with and respond to each other’s requests in the following months. On the UEFA side, for instance, the 1958 general assembly decided to set up ‘a commission to study the problems of television’. It was composed of experienced leaders like the Belgian José Crahay and Stanley Rous from Britain. Essential to this commission was establishing a body that could better represent UEFA’s interests when undertaking negotiations with television organisations. Alongside this, UEFA developed its administration. After five years in Paris, where UEFA had been located in the same building as the French Football Federation, it acquired its own headquarters in Berne and hired a permanent General Secretary, Hans Bangerter, a former employee of FIFA. Dynamic and experienced in football affairs, Bangerter quickly took the decision to reform the organisation’s activities, a policy that obliged UEFA to seek a steadier and wider stream of income. In the meantime, EBU leaders were also taking steps to improve the links with other sports organisations. In 1959, almost 300 programmes were broadcast on the network. Certainly the popularity and spread of Eurovision formed part of this, but the EBU also benefited from a general rise of television set ownership, which in the countries affiliated to the EBU increased from about 3,200,000 in 1954 to 14,200,000 in 1959. 41  In addition to the development of Eurovision itself, reaching an agreement with UEFA would also help the EBU to establish itself as the main player in European television. ‘Le réseau européen de télévision’, Bulletin de l’UER 35, no. 7 (1955): 172.

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Thus, the EBU had more money and could now imagine paying sports organisations for the rights to show their games. The idea of paying for rights, admittedly, did not meet with universal approval at the time; EBU lawyers helped to justify the concept by arguing that financial compensation for sports broadcasts should be expected since the sport was taking place in a ‘closed space’ where customarily a ticket would be required to attend.42 This, combined with the fact that the programme commission asked Peter Dimmock—who had been working for the EBU since its formation—to take up the position of ‘sports advisor’, one which he had already occupied at the BBC, strengthened the likelihood that the EBU would start to negotiate and pay for exclusive sports rights. The outcome of all this was that, by the end of the 1950s, both UEFA and the EBU seemed ‘structurally’ ready to start negotiating an agreement on the broadcasting of European football matches. If this already made it likely that UEFA-EBU collaboration would prove more fruitful going forward, of still more significance was the parallel process undertaken by the EBU to engage more systematically with leaders of the IBU.43 As European football concerned both Eastern and Western European countries, it was taken for granted that the UEFA executive committee would represent all the diverse forces within the organisation. The task of securing an agreement with UEFA would therefore be made a good deal easier if the EBU and IBU were themselves able to cooperate and decide how best to approach the showing of games covering their respective jurisdictions. In this context, the EBU leadership came to see football as an increasingly useful vehicle through which to engage with their counterparts in the Eastern bloc. In 1959, Marcel Bezençon made no secret of the fact that it would be a significant breakthrough if the EBU were able to re-establish links with broadcasters from the Eastern bloc that had broken off due to the Cold War.44

42  ‘L’Eurovision et ses problèmes juridiques’, Revue de l’UER.  Cahier B 55 (June 1959): 25–28. 43  Lars Lundgren, ‘Transnational Television in Europe: Cold War Competition and Cooperation’, in Simo Mikkonen and Pia Koivunen (eds.), Beyond the Divide: Entangled Histories of Cold War Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015), 237–56. 44  ‘L’Eurovision? Une idée simple qui réussit’, Revue de l’UER. Cahier B 56 (July 1959): 5.

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ECCC Final: The Most Important European Event? The stage was therefore set for official discussions between the EBU and UEFA delegations to recommence, as they eventually did in March 1960. In the following weeks UEFA Vice President, Stanley Rous, wrote a preliminary memorandum on football and television. Proof of the breakthrough in relations that had been reached came when the Eurovision network officially broadcast the 1960 ECCC final live in May 1960. The first agreement between UEFA and the EBU, covering the regular broadcasting of several ECCC matches, was signed a year later.45 Several issues, however, remained unresolved. Indeed, the UEFA executive committee wanted to set a fixed fee for the broadcasting of ECCC matches. However, EBU top leaders disagreed, as they preferred to pay the price match by match. They also wanted their UEFA counterparts to provide them with an accurate schedule of matches at the beginning of the season. This request implied reviewing the whole procedure of organising the competition; as was, it was up to clubs to decide the precise dates between themselves rather than for UEFA to set a general timetable in which the matches could be played. This issue, though, proved insufficient to dent the progress made, and it became more and more evident that the two bodies benefited by keeping their agreement in place. In fact, during the 1960s, UEFA’s tasks increased every year—by the middle of the 1960s it already had 15 permanent commissions. Furthermore, new European competitions like the European Cup for Nations and the European Cup Winners’ Cup (ECWC) were created.46 This coincided with UEFA taking greater control of European competitions (one of the few exceptions was  the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup) and its executive committee decided that UEFA was now the only body which ought to organise a tournament involving European countries. That is why in 1963 UEFA absorbed an organisation—the International Committee of Leagues—which had been created in 1959 by

45  UEFAA/Box RM00010067, ‘Rapport sur la deuxième Conférence des secrétaires généraux des 9/10 septembre 1965 à Hambourg’, September 1965. 46   Jürgen Mittag and Benjamin Legrand, ‘Towards a Europeanization of Football? Historical Phases in the Evolution of the UEFA Football Championship’, Soccer & Society 11, no. 6 (2010): 709–22, Philippe Vonnard, ‘From Mitropa Cup to UEFA Cup: the role of UEFA in the establishment of a European scale in football, 1927–1972’, Soccer & Society 20, no. 7–8 (2019): 1025–1040, here 1032–34.

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some professional football leagues.47 The new UEFA President, Gustave Wiederkehr, clearly encouraged the development of this policy and considered that the sums resulting from sales of television rights could be used to fund it.48 Moreover, many European football actors—UEFA leaders, top club presidents and also journalists—believed that television, if managed well, could be a good advertising medium for football. It is no surprise then that UEFA’s television commission was renamed, somewhat strangely, as the propaganda commission. In the meantime, the expansion of international television exchanges continued, helped by the fact that the 1960s marked a new stage in the development of television. Most Western European countries for instance saw the introduction of a second national channel, while sales of TV sets continued to increase. This decade also saw the first use of satellites in international television exchanges and the creation of the EBU news service, Mondovision. The EBU’s activities shifted to reflect these developments. According to Simone Courteix, between 1961 and 1969 the EBU’s membership tripled and its budget multiplied tenfold.49 The Eurovision network also followed this upward trend. Of course, the absence of a common language of diffusion and the costs of production still limited the number of programmes that could be swapped between broadcasters. But there were also success stories, including original initiatives such as the launch of the EBU’s listings magazine Journal de l’Europe.50 And Eurovision’s reach only swelled in this period, the network establishing a permanent presence in 18 countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Britain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. In addition, relay stations were now commonly used and covered the entire continent, helping programmes to be transmitted wider than ever before. Most pointedly, a

47  In some countries, the management of football was (and is) divided between the national association (whose focus was on the national team and the organisation of a national cup) and the league (responsible for organising the professional championship). 48  UEFAA/Box RM00000753, Minutes of the UEFA Executive Committee meetings, 16 April 1962. 49  Simone Courteix, Télévision sans frontières: un problème de coopération internationale (Paris: Economica, 1975), 117. 50  François Vallotton, ‘La Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision: coproduction et échange de programmes télévisées (1950–1970)’, in Lévy and Sicard, Les lucarnes de l’Europe, 71–85.

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regular exchange of staff and programmes emerged as a perennial feature of relations between the EBU and IBU. The demand for football broadcasting likewise continued to increase. At the national scale, programmes like Match of the Day on the BBC and Sportschau on the main West German national channel were launched.51 Similarly, meetings of the national teams often benefited from live or delayed broadcast. In addition, a general reading of Télé-Magazine shows that the matches of French clubs in European competitions were often broadcast live or summarised in about forty minutes at the end of the evening. Football undoubtedly reinforced the worth of Eurovision as a network because these matches attracted millions of viewers. In 1963, for example, the ECCC final was watched by nearly 16 million viewers. Football matches were also the perfect opportunity to test the quality of the network’s reach and technical ability: the very first Eurovision broadcast in Portugal was in fact an ECCC semi-final game between Benfica Lisbon and Feyenoord Rotterdam, played in spring 1963 in Lisbon.52 After several months of informal discussions, on 9 June 1965, a new meeting between UEFA’s propaganda commission and the EBU’s programme commission was held, and a procedure was defined regarding the broadcasting of ECCC matches.53 It was decided that the EBU would contact UEFA to ascertain which of its members were likely to broadcast matches. Moreover, the idea of a new long-term agreement was also referred to, aware of the fact that the previous agreement was due to expire in 1967. Finally, the royalties given by the EBU to football actors like UEFA and national clubs were greatly increased. A few months later, Bangerter indicated in a speech called ‘football and television’ that these new agreements had contributed to UEFA’s television income increasing 51  Jean-Christophe Meyer, ‘En pleine lucarne: les émissions télévisées cultes de football en France et en Allemagne (1960–2000)’, in Mickael Attali (ed.), Sports et médias, XIXe-XXe siècles (Biarritz: Atlantica, 2010), 557–66. 52  For Benfica, to play on the European level was a major feat, even though  the great Portuguese team had previously won the ECCC cup in 1961 and 1962. The broadcasting of football during the 1960s at the national level is still undercovered by scholars. For more on  English television, see  Richard Haynes, BBC Sport in Black and White (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). On the Swiss case see Philippe Vonnard, ‘Quand le football masculin “ne passait pas” à la télé. Retour sur les discussions préliminaires entre les acteurs du football et de la télévision suisse (1954–1973)’, in Laurent Tissot and Thomas Busset (eds.), Sport et entreprises (Neuchâtel: CIES, in press). 53  On the same day and at the same place (the Continental hotel in Geneva), the UEFA propaganda commission discussed the same topic with a delegation from the IBU.

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by nearly 66 per cent.54 For UEFA, this agreement was beneficial both for sporting and economic reasons. For the EBU, it was certainly a step forward because it reinforced the project of European cooperation through the Eurovision network desired by these leaders, the final of the ECCC retransmitted in fifteen countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain. However, various points of disagreement persisted between the two bodies and their leaders gave up the idea of creating a replacement agreement. Instead, they decided to discuss their relations on an annual basis. This was driven in part by the desire of UEFA to increase royalties it received for permitting the televising of matches, particularly the finals of football competitions. It was expected that the EBU would pay one million Swiss francs for the finals for both UEFA club competitions—the ECCC and the ECWC—and that this might rise with every subsequent negotiation. But it was also explained by the fact that the EBU sought to remove advertisements from stadiums. Indeed, television promoters wished to avoid advertising major brands for free and remove the risk that ‘[advertising] messages might even become more important than the actual sporting event’.55 This request caused problems for UEFA’s governing bodies. Firstly, the stadiums in which different competition matches were played belonged to individual clubs or national teams rather than UEFA. Secondly, the advertising contracts were legally binding contracts signed between the relevant firms on the one hand and the heads of clubs and stadium administrators on the other. Thirdly, advertising in football grounds was an old practice; the presence of signs in stadiums dated from the interwar period.56 Finally, the EBU insisted that it was essential to know the dates of the matches as soon as possible to be able to ensure the best possible technical follow-up, inside and outside the stadiums. But the leaders of the two organisations were unable to agree on all these points. As a result, the agreement signed in 1965 was not renewed for the 1967–68 season. Despite these differences, the benefits of an agreement were still well known, and were sufficient enough to push UEFA and the EBU to find a 54  UEFAA/Box RM00010067, ‘Rapport sur la deuxième Conférence des secrétaires généraux des 9/10 septembre 1965 à Hambourg’, September 1965, 8–9. 55  ‘Le sport télévisé à l’UER – passé, présent et avenir. Et notes sur la télévision sportive en Grande-Bretagne’, Revue de l’UER. Cahier B 110 (July 1968): 16. 56  Pierre Lanfranchi, ‘La Consommation du spectacle sportif. Une comparaison entre l’Allemagne, l’Italie et la France dans l’entre-deux-guerres’, Le Mouvement Social 206, no. 1 (2004): 115–25.

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compromise. Moreover, not signing an agreement did not mean the termination of UEFA-EBU ties. In fact, the ECCC and ECWC finals in the 1967–68 season were successfully broadcast on the Eurovision network and saw an average of 700,000 Swiss francs paid by the EBU to UEFA. However, throughout the year, both organisations were obliged to negotiate on a case-by-case basis, which entailed significant additional administrative work for the two secretariats. This situation was hence likely only ever to be temporary. After further discussions, an agreement was finally reached in September 1968. This was a landmark date, as it set the amount of money requested by UEFA for four years, giving it the sort of financial certainty that it had long been craving. In addition, UEFA committed to informing the EBU beforehand of those advertisements present in stadiums. Dates would also be set for the competition—thereby removing the influence of individual clubs in setting annual fixtures—and be communicated to the EBU approximately six months in advance. The 1968 agreement on European club competitions made between UEFA’s and the EBU’s leaders was crucial for their development. Due both to the amount of money paid to UEFA and the contract’s duration, Hans Bangerter concluded that  this agreement was ‘essential for football.’57 For the EBU, it was also essential as it ensured EBU broadcasting exclusivity for highly popular competitions. In the same year, Peter Dimmock, writing in the EBU Official Bulletin, could indicate with satisfaction that the majority of great European sports events were now broadcast live on the Eurovision network.58 It was also an alliance which created a truly European event open to tens of millions of European citizens every year.

Conclusion: Studying the ‘Space of Inter-European Relations’ On the eve of the 1970s, then, the relationship between football and television appeared finally to be settled. Football leaders got the money from television broadcasts that would allow them to develop the game; television officials sought out the opportunity to broadcast football matches due to the sheer popularity of the game. This collaboration proved a  UEFAA/Box RM00000917, General Secretary report 1968–1969, 5.  ‘Le sport télévisé à l’UER – passé, présent et avenir. Et notes sur la télévision sportive en Grande-Bretagne’, Revue de l’UER. Cahier B 110 (July 1968): 16. 57 58

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long-­lasting one—indeed, the nexus between UEFA and the EBU still exists today, and the continuing value of this relationship has regularly been remarked upon.59 UEFA and EBU exchanges created a ‘European space of discussion’, an example of interaction between two continental associations about how best to organise inter-European relations comprising states from both ends of the continent that existed well outside the framework of the EEC. While initial exchanges between the two organisations date back to 1956, it took nearly ten years for a real agreement to be reached. This is a reminder that even on the arguably less thorny subject of television and football, the creation of arrangements on a European scale was still not easy. The organisations concerned wished to defend their interests, despite the fact that their respective leaderships were highly conscious of the advantages to be gained by reaching a compromise. Binding them in this regard was the shared vision that the establishment of stronger international links through their organisations could play a role—however minimal—in helping European people and nations better understand one another. While football and television did not therefore follow too strictly the international political nuances of the time, their aim, while as much commercial, was no less ambitious than many of the drivers behind the political and economic cooperation movements that dominated Europe from the late 1940s.60 What was the long-term effect of this UEFA-EBU relationship? It would not be an exaggeration to say that it doubtless played a role in creating a vision of what ‘Europe’ was and is, accessible to European citizens in a way few other strategies are. Take the 2011 survey undertaken by Pierre Édouard Weill, a sociologist who studied the perception of ‘Europe’ held by young immigrants living in France. The results of his research showed that the main reference to an idea of ‘Europe’ for these populations was not Brussels institutions like the now European Union (EU) 59  EBU, ‘Communiqué de presse: L’UER acquiert les droits médias de l’UEFA EURO 2016 dans 26 pays européens’ (24 June 2015), available at https://www.ebu.ch/fr/contents/news/2015/06/ebu-acquires-euro-2016-rights.html (last accessed 10 January 2019). 60  For a general overview on the first UEFA’s promoters, see Philippe Vonnard, ‘Œuvrer en faveur du football européen. Jalons biographiques sur les précurseurs de l’UEFA (1920–1950)’, in William Gasparini (ed.), L’Europe du football. Sociohistoire d’une construction européenne (Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2017), 107–21. Concerning the EBU, see Marie-Françoise Lévy (ed.), Jean d’Arcy, 1913–1983: penser la communication au XXe siècle (Paris: Ed. de La Sorbonne, 2014).

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but, rather, UEFA.61 If researchers should hope to discuss and understand more fully the idea of the origins and development of a ‘European identity’, the fact that European exchanges in football were televised and reached millions of people must therefore surely feature. If nothing else, these games have been shown to help youngsters learn European geography.62 The history of European integration studies can advantageously focus more on these numerous interrelationships between European organisations ‘beyond Brussels’, which the French historian Gérard Bossuat described as a space of inter-European relations.63 Indeed, these kinds of studies help to demonstrate a crucial point which is more difficult to examine from a purely EU-centric position: Europeans citizens have been connected for a long time in their daily lives, whether it be by food, by travel via motorways, trains and airlines, by television and, of course, by sports.64

61  Pierre-Edouard Weill, ‘“Plutôt l’UEFA que l’UE!” (dés-)enchantement de l’identification à l’Europe des jeunes de milieux populaires issus de l’immigration’, Politique européenne 30, no. 1 (2010): 107–30. See also Wolfram Pyta and Nils Havemann (eds.), European Football and Collective Memory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 62  Sports newspapers and television schedules often indicated the place of each game on a European map. For a discussion on contemporary football see Alexander Brand and Arne Niemann, ‘Die UEFA Champions League als politischer Mythos. Einigung Europas oder Entfremdung der Fans?’, Stadion. Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte des Sport 43, no. 1 (2019): 76–98. 63  Gérard Bossuat, ‘Des identités européennes’, in Robert Frank (ed.), Pour l’histoire des Relations internationales (Paris: PUF, 2012), 664. 64  As indicated in numerous publications by the members of the network ‘Tension of Europe’. For an overview of the genesis and development of the European sport space see Sylvain Dufraisse, Sébastien Moreau, Nicola Sbetti and Philippe Vonnard, ‘The European Sport Space: Circulations, Organizations, and European Identity’, Digital Encyclopedia of European History [published online: https://ehne.fr/article/civilisation-materielle/circulations-sportives-europeennes/lespace-sportif-europeen-circulations-organisations-et-identiteeuropeenne].

CHAPTER 4

Mediating in the Cold War: How the Socialist Group of MEPs Became a Driver of Brussels-Moscow Rapprochement Alexandra Athanasopoulou Köpping

In December 1985, a delegation composed of the chairs of the Socialist Group of the European Parliament (EP)—among them Rudi Arndt, the former German Social Democratic Party (SPD) Mayor of Frankfurt, and Barbara Castle, a leading figure in the British Labour Party—landed in Moscow to meet with members of the Soviet state apparatus. This chapter will trace the story of this delegation, from the initiation of the trip to its outcome. As we shall see, the Socialist Group of the EP became a key mediator between the European Community (EC) and Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union (USSR) in what was the first diplomatic encounter between Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the Soviet regime. Crucially, though, the Socialist Group acted informally outside the jurisdiction of both the Parliament and the EC more generally, even if it was able to project legitimacy because its members were parliamentarians. In so doing, these MEPs facilitated the June 1988 joint declaration between the EC and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

A. Athanasopoulou Köpping (*) Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_4

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(Comecon), which established official relations between the two parties and formalised a broader process of informal rapprochement between Moscow and Brussels which had been underway since the 1970s.1 As a so-called own-initiative report on political relations between the EC and the Soviet Union drafted by the EP would comment, this helped to correct the ‘paradoxical situation where the world power on the European continent and the world’s major trading power officially ignored each other and yet had to take into account each other in their daily lives’.2 This episode of European history highlights three main points that relate to the overall aims of the present volume. First, it shows a European continent where politicians from both sides of the Iron Curtain tried to build bridges during the Cold War and maintain links between Eastern and Western Europe. The chapter therefore participates in placing the history of the EC/European Union (EU) within the global context of the Cold War. Second, it focuses, like Ettore Costa does in his chapter on the early Socialist International, on the role played by individuals within larger transnational networks in bringing European countries closer together, here exemplified by social democratic party networks attempting to somehow unify the countries of East and West. Third, it highlights the historical role of the EP in participating in the construction of European foreign policy and diplomacy. This episode of EC/EU history breaks with traditional narratives about the Parliament’s quest for power in the international arena, as it shows that the MEPs did not wait until the Maastricht Treaty and, in particular, the creation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to act on the international stage.3 Unlike other chapters of this volume, this chapter deals specifically with the EC as the predecessor of the EU. However, it challenges the teleological, sui genesis vision of EU integration by looking at how during the late 1980s the EP—an institution long considered marginal by most EU

1  Angela Romano, ‘Untying Cold War knots: The EEC and Eastern Europe in the long 1970s’, Cold War History 14, no. 2 (2014): 153–173. 2  Historical Archives of the European Parliament (henceforth HAEP), PE2/PE/119.475/ fin, Klaus Hänsch, ‘Report drawn up on behalf of the Political Affair Committee on political relations between the European Community and the Soviet Union’, 18 July 1988, 16. 3  Donatella Viola, European Foreign Policy and the European Parliament in the 1990s: An Investigation into the Role and Voting Behaviour of the European Parliament’s Political Groups (London: Ashgate, 2000); Ulrich Dietrichs, ‘The European Parliament in CFSP: More than a Marginal Player?’ The International Spectator 3, no. 2 (2004): 31–46.

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foreign policy authors4—became a diplomatic actor in its own right. The existing literature on the nexus between the European Parliament and foreign policy started to develop only after the emergence of the CFSP in 1993. At the turn of the 2000s, scholarly interest in the role of the EP in European foreign policymaking became more widespread but it was still largely viewed as a peripheral foreign policy institution.5 The emergence of the concept of parliamentary diplomacy in the mid-2000s then helped to shed light on the EP’s role as an actor on the international arena: it was seen to have agency even though the European treaties did not give it explicit powers in the context of the CFSP. All this is indicative of the sort of linear arguments that dominate much of the existing scholarship: in other words, that only with subsequent treaty changes did the EP gain greater influence, and then only incrementally. But this literature has in the process overlooked the external activities of the EP in the decade or so after the first direct elections to the EP took place in 1979. By concentrating on the 1980s, this chapter thus represents a pre-history of the post-­ Maastricht foreign policymaking prowess of the European Parliament. Beyond this, previous research has tended to argue that the EP’s ‘political identity’ makes it unique within the context of EU foreign policy, with MEPs attentive to promoting specific values rather than being ‘concerned with the utility of foreign policy for the Member States’.6 This chapter revises such a characterisation. For despite having previously voted for resolutions that denounced the USSR’s actions on human rights,7 the case study of Soviet-EP relations shows how parliamentarians were driven as much, if not more, by pragmatism. Indeed, they strongly pushed to establish relations with the Soviet Union and sought to gain diplomatic recognition from the Eastern bloc as a way of opening up deeper trade links. To do so, the European Parliament, or more accurately MEPs, sought to position themselves during times of international crises as distinct and important diplomatic actors. Here one must differentiate between official  Viola, European Foreign Policy, 12.  Ibid.; Dietrichs, ‘The European Parliament in CFSP’, 31–46. 6  Flavia Zanon, ‘The European Parliament: An Autonomous Foreign Policy Identity’, in Anna Herranz and Ester Barbé (eds.), The Role of Parliament in European Foreign Policy (Barcelona: Office of the European Parliament in Barcelona, 2005). See also Nicole Fontaine, Mes combats à la Présidence du Parlement Européen, (Paris: Plon, 2002). 7  HAEP/PE1/AP-RP.POLI EP/80.896/fin, Lord Nicholas Bethell, ‘Report drawn up on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee on human right in the Soviet Union’, 11 March 1983. 4 5

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positions and those discussions which take place ‘behind the scenes’. In the specific case of EP-Eastern European relations prior to and following the fall of the Berlin Wall, political families like the Socialist Group played an increasingly important role in the democratisation process in the region—although this was not an ‘official’ EP position. Funding and administrative assistance to do so often came from the party groups, while the influence MEPs brought to bear derived from the EP. This chapter studies the position of the European Parliament in two ways. On the one side it examines the EP’s own-initiative parliamentary reports, a mechanism used by the EP since the early 1970s to document its opinions and to encourage its ideas to be translated into legislation by the Commission.8 On the other, it follows the dynamics that allowed for these official positions to emerge to begin with. Combining two source bases—those of the EP’s committees, in particular the documents of the Political Affairs Committee, and the archives of the Socialist Group, both stored at the Historical Archives of the European Union—the chapter consequently elaborates on the internal dynamics of the European Parliament. This is crucial. For if the archives of the committees were used in isolation, it would seem that the USSR was hardly part of the EP’s agenda. Combining them with archival documents of the Socialist Group, however, better shows how the EP, formally and informally, sought to overcome the East-West divide. For instance, the personal archives of Paolo Falcone, who was Secretary General of the Socialist Group between 1981 and 1989, includes faxes and communications between Falcone and the Soviet Embassy in Brussels, the internal communications of the Socialist Group concerning the 1985 trip, minutes of the meetings that took place during their stay in Moscow and Leningrad, and visa applications for the members of the delegation. All put another way, the Falcone Fond underscores how much the Secretariat of the Socialist Group was involved in the preparation of the 1985 trip. The chapter proceeds as follows. After briefly explaining the EP’s position on the EC-Soviet relationship prior to the mid-1980s, it will follow a chronological account of the events focusing on three critical junctures: first, the preparation of the trip and the uncertainty that surrounded it; 8  Mechthild Herzog, ‘Far Beyond the Treaties’ Clause: The European Parliament’s Gain in Power, 1952–1979’, Journal of Contemporary Europe Research 13, no. 2 (2017): 1055–1075, here 1066; Neill Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Union (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 201.

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second, the trip itself and emergence therein of a protocol as to how formal diplomatic trips of this kind should function; and, third, the outcome and impact of the trip.

The EP and the EC-Soviet Relationship During Perestroika EC-Soviet relations went through different phases between 1957 and the end of the Cold War. They started off poorly and, at a broad level, mutual non-recognition remained a constant up until 1988. But already during the 1970s, with the EC asserting itself as a major force in the realm of international trade, there were incremental moves to establish closer bilateral ties—this despite a more general worsening of relations between the two superpowers towards the end of the 1970s.9 Angela Romano has spoken of the period between 1985 and 1992 as one when the EC then ‘harvested the fruits of [this] Ostpolitik’. She likewise highlights the European Parliament as the institution with the most favourable outlook towards the Eastern states throughout these years, best symbolised in the numerous reports on Eastern Europe it produced and its more forthcoming attitude compared to the Council on the matter of financial transfers to Eastern countries.10 And yet it remains unclear why the EP might have proved the more lenient institution. One possible answer may lay in the fact that the European Parliament developed its own specific working culture, vocabulary and internal decision-making procedures quite separately from the rest of the EC apparatus.11 It fell to the EP’s Political Affairs Committee to deal with international affairs and draft the own-initiative reports which outlined its views relating to foreign policy. This work was driven by political party groups to which most MEPs belonged. Since the establishment of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steal Community (ECSC) back in 1951, two political groupings—the Socialist Group and the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP)—had emerged as the dominant forces within the parliament, and they each set about creating 9  Angela Romano, ‘The EC and the Socialist World: The Ascent of a Key Player in Cold War Europe’, in Ulrich Krotz, Kiran K. Patel and Federico Romero (eds.), Europe’s Cold War Relations: The EC toward a Global Role (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 51–71. 10  Ibid., 61. 11   Roswitha Bourguignon-Wittke et  al., ‘Five Years of Directly Elected European Parliament: Performance and Prospects’, Journal of Common Market Studies 24, no. 1 (1985): 39–59, here 42.

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their own administrative structures to assist the work of their MEPs sitting on various EP committees.12 This trend would prove decisive in creating an individualised response to the question of relations with the Soviet bloc. During the second half of the 1980s the Political Affairs Committee drafted three foreign policy-related reports. The first, written in the autumn of 1985, concerned trade between the EC and European members of Comecon.13 The second, on relations with the United States (US), emerged two years later in 1987. And the last, most substantive report (referenced above) on political relations between the EC and the Eastern bloc was finalised in June 1988 prior to the signing of the joint EC-USSR declaration later in the month. By the mid-1980s it was becoming clearer that EC integration was jumpstarting after almost a decade of Eurosclerosis. The European Community was well on its way to transforming into a European Union, and it was becoming clear that this Union was to have some sort of foreign policy agenda. The confidence that the EP and the MEPs displayed when drafting these three reports stemmed from such a belief. The EC was, in other words, becoming more than a trading bloc, and through its actions the European Parliament was contributing to transforming it into as much. Relations with the Soviet Union formed a key part of this. Efforts to formalise dialogue between the EC and the communist countries of Eastern Europe, admittedly, stretch back to at least to 1976. But the advancement of these efforts was slow, and Eastern European representatives were keen to avoid mention of EC institutions for fear of giving it official political and diplomatic recognition. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union later in 1979, increasing tension between the US and the USSR, and the sense that the European Community wished to prioritise a more open approach to China over the Soviet Union, in turn all contributed to the eventual breaking off of the negotiations.14 Only after Gorbachev came to power in March 1985 did the USSR radically change its attitude towards the Community. Indeed, in June that same year the Secretary General of Comecon, Vyacheslav Sychev, indicated in a letter 12  Richard Corbett, Francis Jacobs and Daren Neville, The European Parliament (London: John Harper Publishing 2016), 164. 13  HAEP/PE2/AP.RP.POLI/EP95.691/fin, Vinzenzo Bettiza, ‘Report drawn up on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee on relations between the European Community and Eastern Europe’, 7 October 1985. 14  John Van Oudenaren, Detente in Europe: The Soviet Union and the West (London: Duke University Press, 1991), 278.

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sent to the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, and the Trade Commissioner, Willy De Clercq, that talks between Moscow and Brussels about establishing official relations should reopen.15 In 1979 the EP had set up interparliamentary delegations with various Comecon countries. And in 1983 Klaus Hänsch and Lord Nicholas Bethell, both members of Political Affairs Committee, requested authorisation to travel to the USSR, German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Czechoslovakia.16 None of this prevented condemnation of the Soviet regime. On the contrary, the Kremlin was the object of frequent critique by MEPs for its policies towards Poland, the Baltic republics and Afghanistan. But in terms of EP muscle-flexing these were nonetheless significant moves. For prior to this date the EP had only really adopted an independent position on the EC’s external relations when it concerned the largely uncontroversial question of ties with the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Already in the first legislature of 1979–84 this had thus started to change. But interest in East-West ties really escalated following the 1984 EP elections, with the relationship between the EC and the Soviet Union ever more an object of parliamentary discussion during the second legislative period which lasted until the next elections in 1989. But all these formal efforts were necessarily curtailed by the political atmosphere of the Cold War and the lack of official relations between the EC and the Eastern bloc. Hänsch and Bethell were thus prevented by the EP Bureau—the body responsible for the Parliament’s planning and internal/external relations, upon which sat the EP president and vice presidents—from undertaking their visit. And while further EP delegations were allowed to start their work and plan trips to Eastern Europe, only in June 1988—that is, when official relations with the Comecon had been established—was permission finally granted for these delegations to go ahead.17 The parliamentary reports concerned specifically with EC-USSR relations which emerged in 1985 and 1988 respectively therefore represented one of the few formal vehicles through which MEPs could try to exert influence on the matter and ensure their voice was heard. Even then,  Ibid., 279.  HAEP/PE1/PE 86.405/bur, ‘Note à l’attention du Président: Autorisation du Bureau d’effectuer des voyages dans des Pays de l’Est’, 15 September 1983. 17  HAEP/PE1/PE124.760/bur, ‘Minutes of the Meeting of Enlarged Bureau’, 6 July 1983, 19. 15 16

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by the time the 1988 report was accepted, the unfolding events of the end of the Cold War took precedence and the conclusions it drew were ultimately agreed much too late to have any real effect. It is nevertheless useful to dwell on the two reports drafted by the Political Affairs Committee, since both give us a glimpse of how MEPs saw the question of the Community’s relationship with the Eastern bloc in this period. One thread connecting both reports was the expectation by the EP that first the Eastern European countries and later the Soviet Union itself should recognise the EC ‘as a political entity’.18 There is some debate by historians as to how much freedom of action individual members of Comecon had in deciding their relationship with the EC. John Van Oudenaren has argued for instance that the Eastern bloc was largely influenced by the Soviet attitude towards Brussels.19 More recent empirical studies by, among others, Suvi Kansikas, have by contrast questioned the dominance of the Soviet Union within Comecon.20 Regardless, what matters for this analysis is that MEPs acted as if the Soviet Union dominated Comecon. Concessions from Eastern European states were thus thought of as a useful first step, while only Soviet acquiescence seems to have been considered sufficient to secure agreement. The first own-initiative report was voted on by the Political Affairs Committee in early October 1985. Although the report was relatively short for the standards of the time, the rapporteur, Vincenzo Bettiza, was nevertheless skilful in balancing between extant realities and future objectives. For on the one hand he acknowledged the political and geopolitical limitations of the time, both in terms of the still quite limited competencies of the Community and the absence of official relations between it and the USSR. But he also made clear the potential economic benefits of closer ties which, he argued, ought more firmly to drive rapprochement going forward. This led the way for the report to ask fundamental questions not only about whether the EC should deal with Comecon as a single entity or as a collection of individual countries, but also about whether the Community should seek to play a much more ambitious political role in deepening ties between Eastern European countries and the West.21 On  Bettiza, ‘Report on relations between the European Community and Eastern Europe’, 5.  Van Oudenaren, Detente in Europe, 275–80. 20  Suvi Kansikas, Socialist Countries Face the European Community: Soviet Bloc Controversies over East-West trade (Brussels: Peter Lang 2014), 197. 21  Bettiza, ‘Report on relations between the European Community and Eastern Europe’, 8. 18 19

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the former point the report stated a preference for establishing relations on a bilateral basis. And on the latter point the report was equally clear: the uniting of the ‘two Europes’ was something the EC should actively be involved in.22 It is true that a more heated debate probably took place within the Political Affairs Committee over the role of the EC in all this. That alongside two reports on EC-socialist bloc relations existed a third on EC-US relations at the very least suggests that the Committee was somewhat torn between which superpower ought to receive more of its attention. Doubtless common though was the belief that shared and distinct ‘European’ interest should motivate parliamentarians into being more active in the field of diplomacy towards the East in order to secure both economic as well as political gains. By the time the own-initiative report on political relations between the European Community and the Soviet Union, drafted by Hänsch, was adopted on 18 July 1988, it was evident that MEPs had grown highly conscious of the processes that were taking place on the other side the Berlin Wall. What had not changed was the simple fact, as explained above, that throughout this period MEPs were limited in how much they could do via official channels. It was a limitation that parliamentarians were not only aware of but, as we will now discuss, sought to overcome. Party groups, with their own budgets and freedom to travel to the Soviet Union as they saw fit, could act outside the constraints placed on MEPs by the EP Bureau. The archives of party families like the Socialist Group demonstrate in particular the importance of individuals who utilised unofficial relations and contacts and whose personal histories came to shape the EP’s official action.23

Preparing the Delegation It was on the initiative of two SPD MEPs, Rudi Arndt and Willy Rothley, that the delegation from the European Parliament visited the Soviet Union in December 1985. This was, as already stated, not an official EP delegation but rather a delegation of the Socialist Group of the EP working as an intermediary between the EP and the Soviet Union. This trip is an early example of the European Parliament and its parliamentarians as  Ibid., 17.  For more see Stelios Stavridis, ‘Parliamentary diplomacy: Any lessons for regional parliaments’, (2006), 6, available at https://agora-parl.org/node/1288, (accessed 20 July 2018). 22 23

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international actors practicing parliamentary diplomacy. Although, official delegations of the European Parliament had been travelling to the USA and former European colonies since the 1950s, the novelty in this case was that parliamentarians were travelling to an antagonistic state. Repeated several times during the trip was that the Socialist Group delegation was not there to negotiate; from the start they insisted they simply wished to form contacts and establish trust between the two sides in the hope of institutionalising EC-USSR links in the future.24 The explanation for why this trip took place lies in the changing geopolitical environment. For a start, Gorbachev’s rise to power brought with it a changed public tone towards the European Community and suddenly made unofficial links more palatable.25 A path for the Socialist Group had in fact been laid by the Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi who visited Moscow in May while Italy was holding the rotating presidency of the EC. It was on this occasion that Gorbachev mentioned publicly for the first time the possibility of officially recognising the European Community as a ‘political partner’ and thus of reorganising the relationship between the EC and Comecon.26 The Italian Foreign Ministry, when later commenting on Gorbachev’s proposal in an internal memorandum, emphasised the importance of European Political Cooperation—the name for the Community’s foreign policy coordination—as having helped push the Soviet leader to recognise the EC as such. According to Maria Elena Guasconi, the Ministry even tried to pressure its Community counterparts into accepting Gorbachev’s offer, an appeal which ultimately fell on deaf ears in the Council.27 In the absence of a more top-level response, the space for MEPs to take the lead opened up. In June, Gorbachev’s offer was followed up by the letter from Sychev. In his response, De Clercq replied favourably but made clear that the 24  Historical Archives of the European Union (hereafter HAEU), PF21, Norbert Gresch, ‘Rapport sur le voyage effectué par une délégation du comité directeur du groupe Socialiste du parlement Européen à Moscou et à Leningrad, du 16 au 23 Décembre 1985’, 24 January 1986. 25  Anders Aslund, ‘The New Soviet Policy Towards International Economic Organisations’, The World Today 44, no. 2 (1988): 27–30, here 28. 26  Gresch, ‘Rapport sur le voyage à Moscou et à Leningrad, du 16 au 23 Décembre 1985’, 1. 27  Maria Elena Guasconi, ‘The Single European Act, European Political Cooperation, and the end of the Cold War’ in Bernhard Blumenau, Jussi M. Hanhimäki and Barbara Zanchetta (eds), New Perspectives on the end of the Cold War: Unexpected Transformations? (London: Routledge, 2018), 187–199, here 193–4.

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Community preferred bilateral agreements with the Comecon countries over EC-bloc relations via the Kremlin.28 When Sychev replied in September, his vague answer left the EC uncertain as to whether the Community would be allowed to conduct negotiations on such a basis. During the trip to Moscow in December 1985, Arndt would have the opportunity to express these concerns to Sychev himself.29 This would also offer MEPs an opportunity to find out who was representing the various political forces in Gorbachev’s Moscow. It was Rothley who initially suggested to Arndt that a delegation of the Socialist Group should undertake this trip. And it was he who in the summer of 1985 secured the necessary clearance from the Soviets.30 Rothley made good use of his established friendly contacts with Viktor Rykin, who worked in the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).31 Arndt immediately adopted the idea and made the promotion of Ostpolitik within the EP his priority. Here support for the trip was further buoyed by the fact that the negative position of the CPSU towards Western European socialist parties which had been a hallmark of the 1960s had long dissipated. In fact, more institutionalised ties between Western European socialists and the Kremlin emerged from 1972.32 By 1985, all Western European socialist leaders— from former German Chancellor Willy Brandt to the Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), Felipe González—had travelled to Moscow. Moreover, Gorbachev’s first high level meetings upon assuming office had been with Brandt, Craxi and Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.33 The Socialist International (SI), of which Brandt was 28  The previous negotiations between the EC and Comecon had fallen out in 1980 as Comecon insisted on trade provisions. From the Community’s perspective this was unacceptable as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance had no common commercial policy nor commercial instruments. See European Commission, ‘Press Release’, 1987, available at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-87-29_fr.htm (accessed 6 December 2016). 29  Gresch, ‘Rapport sur le voyage à Moscou et à Leningrad, du 16 au 23 Décembre 1985’, 48. 30  HAEU/PF20, Willy Rothley to Rudi Arndt, 27 August 1985. 31  From the correspondence in file HAEU/PF20 it seems that Rykin was the first one who entered in contact with Rothley in November 1984. During the summer of 1985, Rothley secured the visit. Rothley and Rykin were the intermediaries between Arndt and Zagladin who met later in Vienna. Andrei Grachev, Gorbachev’s Gamble: Soviet Foreign Policy and the end of the Cold War (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008). 32  Van Oudenaren, Detente in Europe, 136–8. 33  Ibidem, 143.

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President, thus unsurprisingly became an important forum where delegations from the Soviet Union and those comprising Western European socialists had the opportunity to meet. It was during the Disarmament Conference organised by the SI in Vienna in October 1985 that Arndt discussed informally with Vadim Zagladin, a close advisor to Gorbachev, the modalities of the trip.34 Rothley and Rykin in turn acted as intermediaries between Arndt and Zagladin. Two aspects of this are remarkable. Firstly, the transnational socialist networks enabled the Soviets to initiate the rapprochement between the EP and the Soviet Union. Secondly, it was the European Parliament that represented the EC. While the Soviets had sent their official letter to De Clercq as Trade Commissioner, there existed a parallel process where MEPs were using the SI and their social democratic network to establish contacts across the Iron Curtain. Clearly the EP as an institution had something non-threatening about it; it was in some ways a soft power in its own right. Despite this frenetic activity, it was never certain the trip would go ahead. As the weeks wore on, Falcone therefore came to have a more substantive role in organising arrangements, contacting the Soviet Embassy in Brussels to deal with last-minute issues. It had been agreed early on that the delegation would visit the USSR between 16 and 23 December 1985. The members of the delegation would comprise the chair and vice-chairs of the Socialist Group: Arndt, Castle, the Italian Mario Dido and his wife (who was taking part on the journey without being part of the delegation), the Dutch MEP Pieter Dankert, the French parliamentarian Henry Saby, Ernest Glinne from Belgium, and two members of the Secretariat of the Socialist Group, Falcone and Norbert Gresch, accompanied by three freelance translators. But the sheer complexity of the task at hand became clear when Falcone tried to secure the required travel visas. Those for the MEPs, Falcone and Gresch were due to be issued by the Soviet Embassy in Brussels; its counterparts in Paris and Geneva would administer papers for the three translators. As late as 9 December, though, Falcone had received no news from either embassy. Exacerbating this was the fact that all discussions with the Soviet side up to that point had been informal and no official invitation from the Soviets had been issued; not only did enquires from Falcone go unanswered but it remained unclear what the programme of meetings would be once the delegation arrived. Complaints by Falcone lodged with Dmitri Tarabrine, his contact in the Soviet  HAEU/PF20, Rudi Arndt to Lev Nikolaevich Tolkunov, 25 October 1985.

34

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Embassy in Brussels, did little to unblock the impasse.35 It was only when Arndt contacted the West German Embassy in Moscow that the delegation was reassured that this sort of belatedness was a local pattern of behaviour of the Soviet authorities.36 Even then, Falcone was forced to issue an ultimatum to the Soviet Ambassador to Brussels that if the Soviets had not responded to the visa request by 11 December then the group would cancel its trip. Predictably, perhaps, the official invitation arrived that same day. Notable for its brevity, this stated that ‘on behalf of the Soviet authorities we would like to confirm the invitation of the Parliamentary Group of the Supreme Soviet [that is, the legislative bodies of the Soviet republics] to visit the USSR between the 16 and 23 December’.37 The visas could be picked up at the Brussels Embassy immediately. The programme, though, was only communicated in vague terms via a phone conversation. The whole episode put a dampener on the Group’s enthusiasm, confirmed by the salutations used by Falcone to greet his contact at the Embassy before and after the episode. These started with ‘haute consideration’ but quickly descended into ‘cordialement’.38

Moscow and Its Short-Term Impact The Socialist Group delegation arrived in Moscow without knowing the hotel in which members would stay or the final programme of the visit. This was only communicated upon arrival at the airport, where Arndt told the welcoming party that the delegation wanted to meet with Gorbachev and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eduard Shevardnadze, and have meetings at the Soviet Institute for America and Canada. This was a somewhat forceful request which surprised the Group’s hosts and seemingly put them in a difficult position, so much so that they tried to justify their decision to prevent either happening by claiming that it was impossible to alter the programme.39 Either way, the visit still offered a number of opportunities. If nothing else it provided a chance to uncover the ‘black box’ that was the Soviet  Ibid., Paolo Falcone to Dmitri Tarabrine, 4 December 1985.  Ibid., Paolo Falcone to Serge Nikitine, 9 December 1985. 37  Ibid., Serge Nikitine to Paolo Falcone, 11 December 1985. 38  Ibid., Paolo Falcone to Dmitri Tarabrine, 12 December 1985. 39  Gresch, ‘Rapport sur le voyage à Moscou et à Leningrad, du 16 au 23 Décembre 1985’, 12. 35 36

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regime, a way of finding out who was who politically and with whom the EP might seek to maintain relations in the future.40 This explains why, as the trip got underway, the Group maintained close relations with officials of the EC member states, assisted in particular by the Luxembourgish Ambassador in Moscow whose government then headed the Council’s rotating presidency. Towards the end of the visit the Luxembourgish Embassy even organised a dinner to which news correspondents from Western Europe based in Moscow were invited.41 And parallel with meetings with Soviet institutions, the Group also met with other Western European diplomats during the course of its stay. MEPs held talks with their own national embassies and held at least two de-briefing meetings with the ambassadors of the various EC member states.42 This coordination between different EC embassies was important, establishing the Socialist Group delegation in the eyes of both the Council and national capitals as a sort of representative of Community as a whole. But it was the chance of creating lasting ties between the EC and the USSR that clearly most tempted the Group. During the meeting with Zagladin, for instance, Arndt proposed the framework for interparliamentary delegations in order to institutionalise the relationship between the EC and the Supreme Soviet.43 In this case the lines between Arndt as a representative of an official EP, and thus ultimately EC, delegation, and that of the Socialist Group specifically, become rather blurry. For despite effectively being barred from doing so, Arndt was directly intervening in the question of the relationship between the EC and the Soviet Union and the EC and the Comecon countries more generally. Discussions about the conditions under which the Supreme Soviet and the EP could institutionalise their ties clearly ventured beyond his stated brief. The trip would have an immediate impact on the behaviour of MEPs like Arndt and Rothley—whose roles in initiating and eventually organising the trip cannot be overstated44—when they returned to the EP.  As leader of the Socialists in the EP, Arndt quickly promoted within the EP Bureau and Political Affairs Committee the idea of institutionalising relations between the Parliament and the Supreme Soviet. Arndt—whose  Norbert Gresch interviewed by the author, Rhode Saint Genèse, 17 January 2017.  Gresch, ‘Rapport sur le voyage à Moscou et à Leningrad, du 16 au 23 Décembre 1985’, 9. 42  Ibid. 43  Ibid., 19, 26–7. 44  Stavridis, ‘Parliamentary Diplomacy’, 7. 40 41

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previous success was the construction of the Frankfurt Airport while mayor—also placed Ostpolitik at the heart of the Parliament’s objectives vis-à-vis the Eastern bloc. And yet the delegation itself was quick to dismiss the idea that the trip was of broader political significance beyond this.45 Were they right to? A deeper analysis of the more short-term importance of the trip suggests not. First, the Socialist Group delegation established what would become a regular pattern of behaviour for the EP, with informal contacts between the Soviet Union and members of the Parliament continuing to take place over the following years. In March 1987 for example the Bureau of the EPP, headed by Egon Klepsch (a good friend of Arndt), was suitably convinced of the importance of this type of action that it chose to visit the Soviet Union. On its arrival, the EPP delegation even met with the same individuals and institutions as had Arndt and his colleagues— including Sychev who discussed the possibility of Comecon representatives acquiring a building in Brussels to set up permanent representation to the EC.46 The EPP visit also brought out into the open confirmation by the Soviets that they had revised their earlier position and were now willing to discuss establishing bilateral relations between the EC and individual Comecon countries. As was the case with the Socialist Group, EPP parliamentarians thus acted more as representatives of the EP and the Community than as a political party fact-finding mission, with Klepsch stressing the need for the Soviet Union to recognise the political status of the European Community before diplomatic relations could open.47 And as was again the case with Arndt’s December 1985 visit, the EPP mission proved a vital way of acquiring information from and about the Soviet Union—even if Soviet officials were at times less than forthcoming in their replies. Discussions even ventured into the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, with the topic of conversations ranging from the causes of the accident to measures taken to protect the environment.48 Second, a line can also be drawn between the Socialist Group visit and the subsequent decision by the EP plenary session of 21 January 1987 to create interparliamentary delegations (IPDs) with the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. As we already know, it was ruled that, because 45  Gresch, ‘Rapport sur le voyage à Moscou et à Leningrad, du 16 au 23 Décembre 1985’, 58. 46  HAEU/PF23, ‘Compte rendu de la mission de la présidence du groupe du PPE en URSS du 16 au 21 Mars 1987’, EPP Secretariat, Brussels, 30 March 1987, 11. 47  Ibid., 19. 48  Ibid., 7.

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the Community was not yet recognised by the Eastern bloc, no IPD could yet start its work.49 But this did not stop the Socialist Group making use of the contacts established on the trip to Moscow by inviting a delegation of the Supreme Soviet to the EP in October 1987 in Brussels. In so doing, it offered the chance to negotiate the composition of the IPDs and iron out any areas of potential conflict between the two sides so that, when the opportunity came, the IPDs could begin functioning in earnest. This was helped massively by the fact that while the Supreme Soviet was present as guests of the Socialist Group, meetings and dinners were also attended by other EP political groups and the EP Bureau itself. A unified EP approach to the shape and nature of the IPDs was thus more likely as a result. Discussions during the October 1987 gathering were organised around four working groups: the international situation, security and disarmament, human rights and economic questions. During the convening of the first working group, detailed talks took place about the setting up of the planned IPD to the Supreme Soviet. At that point, the political groups had already designated the members of the IPD although the delegation itself was not yet officially inaugurated. With agreement reached on this point, discussions could therefore turn to the two remaining, and arguably most controversial, points of contention. The first was concerned with the EP’s decision, reached as a result of the trips undertaken by the EP Socialist Group, to establish relations with the Supreme Soviet on a bilateral basis.50 The second question related to West Berlin.51 The trip by the Supreme Soviet was an opportunity for the Soviets to present informally to the European Commission a proposal for the resolution of this issue.52 It proposed a clause which would specify that West Berlin was part of the European Community’s ‘political and economic sphere’ of influence but that the status of West Berlin as defined by the Quadripartite Agreement of 1971 would not be altered.53 A third reason to attach significance to the Socialist Group’s December 1985 trip is that it sets the scene for Hänsch’s 1988 report, the final EP 49  European Parliament, ‘Decision of the Delegations for Relations with Third Countries’, Official Journal of the European Community C46/41 (21 January 1987). 50  HAEU/PF23, Paolo Falcone, ‘Note à l’attention des Membres du Groupe Socialiste, 7 December 1987’, 4. 51  The Soviets had always denied that West Berlin was an EC territory and therefore did not recognise MEPs coming from West Berlin. 52  HAEU/PF23, ‘Note à l’attention des Membres du Groupe Socialiste’, 7 December 1987, 36. 53  Ibid.

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own-initiative report on the topic of EC-USSR relations. Hänsch had been closely involved in the discussions with the Supreme Soviet during the October 1987 meeting in Brussels. The fact-finding mission he undertook as part of his preparation for the report again followed a relatively similar programme laid down by the Socialist Group in 1985. In addition, he had the opportunity to speak to Gorbachev, a meeting arranged and attended by the then SPD leader, Hans-Jochen Vogel.54 Hänsch therefore benefited from his own national party contacts, using these links to gain access to Soviet politicians in order to help draft an EP report. The report that finally emerged called for the ‘normalization of relations’ between the USSR and the Community and the establishment of full diplomatic ties.55 This came as the EC and Comecon were officialising their relations that would lead to the June 1988 joint declaration. Pointedly, though, Hänsch was at pains to stress in his report that the frequent exchanges between the Soviet Union and the members of the European Parliament ‘helped considerably’ in creating of a favourable climate for negotiations between the two entities.56 These informal contacts, Hänsch continued, were crucial at a time when the EC as an organisation was neither ready to deal with the Soviet Union due to its own process of integration nor capable formally of acting in the realm of foreign policy and security.57 At its heart, however, Hänsch’s report—calling as it did for diplomatic recognition from and close trade and political links with the Eastern bloc, and recognising how crucial the EP was to achieving this aim—was in reality nothing more than a recognition of a procedure that had in reality been taking place for several years. The EP had long been capable of conducting diplomatic negotiations and creating its own form of parliamentary diplomacy through its party groupings.

Long-Term Implications? If these are examples of the immediate fallout of the Socialist Group’s December 1985 trip, what emerges when we place the events described above in a more longue durée perspective? Thomas Risse has talked of the 54  HAEP/PE2/PE119.475/fin, ‘Report on political relations between the European Community and the Soviet Union’, 14. 55  Ibid., 37. 56  Ibid., 38. 57  Ibid., 37.

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conceptual importance of transnational networks for the exchange of ideas in explaining Western and European reactions to the end of the Cold War. More specifically, he identified the significance of epistemic communities but also of regular exchanges between SPD officials and communists.58 Adding to this argument, it is clear from this chapter that the European Parliament contributed greatly towards establishing trust between East and West, and that this left a lasting impression beyond the events of 1989–90. Most of the historical research on the end of the Cold War, and European integration, has focused on the events after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the effects of German unification.59 However, to explain the largely favourable supportive environment of Western European institutions towards German unification, the role of German parliamentarians in promoting West-East relations and a policy of détente in Europe has to be addressed. Members of the European Parliament acted within transnational networks like the Socialist International and used both their national party’s status and their Community status to promote policy ideas. Arndt, Hänsch and Klepsch are very good examples of this. After each of his delegations returned from the USSR, Rudi Arndt would openly advocate in the EP Bureau for an interparliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union. Following the 1989 elections the newly elected Ken Coates, along with other socialist MEPs, took up this call, suggesting a joint session be held between the European Parliament and the Supreme Soviet.60 The issue was jointly brought up to the Bureau by the Chair of the Political Affairs Committee and the new leader of the Socialist Group, Jean-Pierre Cot. In times of historical critical junctures, and when previous world orders fail, once dominant visions for the world are challenged and the quest towards new political projects start. However, these new political projects are often unfinished and most often represent a compromise between competing plans. The end of the Cold War is such a critical juncture in European integration history. The events that took place after 9 November 1989 have been the object of numerous historiographical endeavours.61 The unification of Germany was at the core of this process. And it is no 58  Thomas Risse-Kappen, ‘Ideas No Not Float Feely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the end of the Cold War’, International Organization 48, no. 2 (1994): 185–214, here 212–13. 59  Fréderic Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, Piers Ludlow and Leopoldo Nuti (Eds.) Europe and the End of the Cold War (Oxon: Routledge, 2008). 60  HAEP/PE3/PE142.105/Bur, Goria to Crespo, 10 July 1990. 61  Bozo et al., Europe and the End of the Cold War.

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wonder that the process of opening to the East was geared from bottom to the European level by some German MEPs. This case study shows how West German parliamentarians uploaded the national programme of Ostpolitik onto the EP agenda, thus participating in the Europeanisation of the rapprochement between West and East. The European Parliament, and more precisely the party groups within it, also participated in their part in the democratisation process that took place after 1989, and discussions between the political leaders of large EP party families reveal that they were involved in shaping the democratic elections that took place in the countries of the former Eastern Europe. Reviewing an exchange of letters between the chairmen of the EPP and the Socialist Group it appears that the best way to support the democratisation process became an object of conflict between them. Klepsch and the EPP group wanted to provide direct financial assistance to the new political parties that emerged after the revolutions in Eastern Europe, providing (under the direction of EP’s political groups, of course) material and economic means that would allow their ‘sister’ parties to fund their domestic electoral campaigns.62 Cot was of a different view. He made clear that the EP should support the newly elected national parliaments. He wanted to wait for the elections to first take place in order to see what political dynamics emerged rather than providing official EC assistance to ‘approved lists of political parties’ during electoral campaigns. Cot saw this as external interference in the democratisation process now sweeping the Soviet bloc. The idea to create within the EP’s own budget a ‘democracy fund’ was quite controversial for the socialists at the time.63

Conclusions The European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) that was created in 1994 by the EP is based on a particular proposal from Klepsch and the EPP group, made at the time of the revolutions of 1989. The EIDHR is today seen by observers as one of the main instruments under which the EP has become a global actor in norms setting. It has contributed to the civilian and normative power of European discourse.64  HAEU/GSPE 85, Egon Klepsch to Jean-Pierre Cot, 30 January 1990.  HAEU/GSPE 85, Jean-Pierre Cot to Egon Klepsch, 7 February 1990. 64  For authors who have contributed to the idea of a normative European Global Power see Stelios Stavridis and Daniela Irrera, The European Parliament and its International Relations 62 63

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The internal discussions and reticence about the creation of such a democracy fund for third countries shows that this process has not been as clear cut as it is presented. Political groups within the EP had been initially quite reticent to promote this idea, although the end of the Cold War activated a pan-European discussion on the role of Europe in the world as a counterweight to American hegemony.65 Moreover, it is clear that while before the end of the Cold War both Socialists and Christian Democrats saw the need to establish relations with the USSR and to have a pragmatic approach towards the USSR, this view differed soon after the collapse of communism. This chapter complements the existing literature on the end of the Cold War and European integration with a point of view coming from the margins of the EC.  Political groups of the EP participated in shaping Western European diplomacy towards the opening of the East. It is obvious that it happened principally at the initiative of SPD individuals who saw the importance of driving the Community’s foreign policy towards that new direction. These dynamics were in turn later transferred into the enlargement process.66 Piers Ludlow has argued that given the extent and speed of the EC integration process in the second part of the 1980s, there had been little option but to integrate the Central and Eastern European (CEE) states into the EU. European integration shaped the outcome of the end of the Cold War and set those states on the path to Western integration.67 It was as the Berlin Wall was falling that the Political Affairs Committee requested the authorisation to draft an own-initiative report on enlargement and the relationship of the Community with European non-members. The subsequent 1990 Penders and the 1991 Planas Puchades reports positioned the CEE countries as potential candidates for (London: Routledge, 2015); Ian Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?’ Journal of Common Market Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 235–258; Sonia Lucarelli and Ian Manners, Value and Principle in European Union Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2006). For a critical analysis on the concept of Civilian Power Europe see Veit Bachmann and James Sidaway, ‘Zivilmacht Europa: A critical geopolitics of the European Union as a Global Power’, Transaction of the Institute of British geographers, New Series 34, no. 1 (2009): 94–109. 65  Bachmann and Sidaway, ‘Zivilmacht Europa’, 104. 66  Bozo et al., Europe and the End of the Cold War. 67  Piers N. Ludlow, ‘Not a wholly New Europe: How the integration framework shaped the end of the Cold War in Europe’ in Frederic Bozo, Andreas Rödder and Marie Elise Sarotte, German reunification: A Multinational History (London: Routledge, 2016), 133–152, here 156.

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enlargement for the first time.68 These reports were, however, merely the tip of the iceberg, and hide the whole process behind them. In this chapter, I have looked at the role of a European political party— the Socialist Group—in influencing and performing foreign policy and the political and personal links that existed between Eastern and Western Europe therein. The chapter goes beyond the defined scope of the EU treaties to look at the role of the European Parliament in foreign policy. Political groups obviously played a crucial role in shaping the EP’s external profile through their informal diplomacy. This was probably possible during the first legislatures between 1979 and 1989 because, at the time, the EP was not the highly institutionalised entity that it is today. This allowed individual MEPs to pursue different forms of relations with organisations and institutions that were dealing with similar issues. Political groups in the EP drew on the capabilities and the networks of their individual members. What is also remarkable is that the main actors of this rapprochement were all West Germans. The role of the European Parliament in the EC’s external relations in the 1980s was real, which contradicts the view of the existing literature on the European legislator. However, this role needs to be understood within larger transnational networks. Social democracy in Western Europe created and provided a bridge between the ‘two Europes’ that allowed for mutual understanding in the Cold War context. Indeed, the European Parliament was arguably a forum where the Europeanisation of Ostpolitik took place.

68  HAEP/PE3/PE 140.010/fin, Jean Penders, ‘Interim report drawn up on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee on political developments in Central and Eastern Europe including the Soviet Union, and the European Community’s role’, 29 June 1990; HAEP, PE3/ PE141.136/fin, Luis Planas Puchades, ‘Report on Community enlargement and relations with other European countries’, 26 March 1991.

CHAPTER 5

Environmental Security for the Promotion of Pan-European Integration: The OSCE as a ‘Europeanising Actor’ in the Balkans Emma Hakala

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is in many ways a unique actor in the context of European integration. Due to its exceptionally broad membership and a mandate that allows it to maintain field operations, it has the potential to quite concretely influence regional security and stability. In addition, it follows a wide conceptualisation of security, its work reaching to issues like democratisation and the environment. Over the years, however, the OSCE has also been criticised for being inefficient and lacking in focus.1 This chapter looks at the role of the OSCE in the European integration process. It examines how the OSCE has aimed to contribute to pan-European unity and how this brings 1   Emma J.  Stewart, ‘Restoring EU–OSCE Cooperation for Pan-European Conflict Prevention’, Contemporary Security Policy 29, no. 2 (2008): 266–84.

E. Hakala (*) Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_5

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it into contact with the ‘core’ integration process in Europe: the European Union (EU). The OSCE has had an important role in promoting specific norms and values, such as democracy or rule of law, that are often perceived to be ‘European’. But it has not sought to develop into a supranational polity with rigid institutional arrangements as is the case with the EU. Even so, thanks to the sheer scope of its membership—which encompasses EU members, EU candidates and countries in the wider European neighbourhood—the OSCE has emerged as one of the few international organisations (IO) capable of supporting cooperation between Eastern and Western European countries in the post-Cold War era. The chapter will consider the OSCE’s role through the specific case of post-conflict Western Balkans, and particularly its work on environmental security and peacebuilding through the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC).2 It will argue that the OSCE saw itself as responsible for contributing to the stability of the Balkans, but in the process it also recognised this as an opportunity to reinforce its role in the much broader European security architecture. As the region’s countries have been participant states of the OSCE since their independence in the early 1990s, the organisation has had a legitimate, inbuilt capacity to promote the kinds of actions set out in its founding documents.3 This is different from the EU, whose leverage is more conditional and whose intervention is largely set by the requirements and pace of the enlargement process. In addition, the OSCE has itself pointed out that its comprehensive perspective on the issue of security and its established mandate in conflict resolution placed it in a much better position to assist in the post-conflict environment of the Balkans.4 Yet at the same time the OSCE has long comprised a community of cooperation whose remit extends beyond the immediate needs of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. Therefore, 2  ‘Western Balkans’ is used here as the term to refer to the region that covers the countries that formerly were part of Yugoslavia: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo (under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244), Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Slovenia is excluded from this discussion as its stabilisation and Europeanisation developed far ahead of the other ex-Yugoslav countries and it was rarely included in any peacebuilding activities. 3  Einar Bull, ‘Opening Address’, in Victor-Yves Ghebali & Daniel Warner (eds.), The Operational Role of the OSCE in South-Eastern Europe. Contributing to regional stability in the Balkans (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), xi–xv. 4  Thomas M. Buchsbaum, ‘The OSCE and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe: A Mother-Daughter, Brother-Sister or Partner Relationship?’, Helsinki Monitor 11 (2000), 62–79, here 62.

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its work had the potential to also contribute to broader integration and Europeanisation in the Western Balkans. Seen as a way to advance stability while also addressing environmental problems in the region, environmental security was one of the main strategies used by the OSCE to promote security in a wider sense. As a theoretical concept, environmental security emerged in the 1990s when the end of Cold War increasingly gave way to new, less state-centred interpretations of security.5 From the point of view of the OSCE, environmental security is well suited to its comprehensive approach to security, which goes beyond traditional politico-military aspects to also include environmental, economic and human security issues. Scholars interested in this sort of environmental security cooperation have tended to deal with the links between environmental factors and conflicts.6 Others have examined how environmental changes affect human security in terms of health, livelihoods and poverty, both at the level of individuals and communities.7 In both approaches, environmental security is conceptualised as the relationship of threats between the ecological environment and society. In addition to these, the environment has been treated as a potential source of cooperation and peacebuilding. In this view, the shared environment and natural resources are regarded as a common interest that can help to build trust across national, ethnic and other divides.8 In the case of the Western Balkans, the OSCE based its environmental security approach on cooperation and stability-building but did so as part of wider efforts that would allow it to tackle additional issues like democratisation. The chapter will proceed with a brief overview of the history of the OSCE and its approaches to European integration and Europeanisation. It will then go on to look at the role of the organisation in the post-­ conflict Western Balkans and, more specifically, its approach to 5  For instance, Jon Barnett, ‘Global Environmental Change and Human Security: An Introduction’, in Richard Matthew et al. (eds.), Global Environmental Change and Human Security (MA: Cambridge, MIT Press, 2010), 3–32. 6  Thomas Homer-Dixon, ‘Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases’, International Security 19, no. 1 (1994): 5–40; Wench Hauge and Tanja Ellingsen, ‘Beyond Environmental Scarcity: Causal Pathways to Conflict’, Journal of Peace Research 35, no. 3 (1998): 299–317. 7  Jon Barnett, Richard A.  Matthew and Karen O’Brien, ‘Global Environmental Change and Human Security’, in Hans Günter Brauch et al. (eds.), Globalization and Environmental Challenges (Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, 2008), 355–61. 8  See for example Ken Conca and Geoff D. Dabelko (eds.), Environmental Peacemaking (Baltimore, PA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).

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environmental security, before in turn discussing the ways in which Europeanisation and integration were reflected in the OSCE’s work in the Western Balkans. This was achieved through two programmes: the Environment and Security Initiative and a project on participatory democracy implemented by the OSCE under the guise of the ‘Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters’.

The OSCE, European Integration and Europeanisation The OSCE was first founded in 1975 as the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), with the aim of establishing a multilateral forum that would enable dialogue between East and West during the Cold War. Its founding document, the Helsinki Final Act, stated that the commitment of the participating states was to peace, security and justice, and presented a so-called Decalogue of fundamental principles to guide relations between them. These principles included cooperation and refraining from the use of force, but also spoke of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Helsinki Act also established a division of the CSCE’s activities into three dimensions of security: politico-military, economic and environmental, and human. With both Western and Eastern European countries and the United States among its participating states, the CSCE provided a genuine opportunity for engagement across the divides of the Cold War. Of course, the CSCE was not a formal organisation but rather a series of meetings to reaffirm the key commitments of the Helsinki Final Act. Even so, it has been suggested elsewhere that it came to have a lead role in the developments leading to the end of the Cold War.9 In particular, the inclusion of human rights as a necessary prerequisite for peace and security has, in retrospect, been seen to have had an essential influence on policymaking in Eastern bloc countries, obliging them to adopt certain international norms that helped pave the way for greater democratic rights for their citizens.10 9  Sarah Snyder, Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 10  Daniel C.  Thomas, The Helsinki Effect: International Norms, Human Rights, and the Demise of Communism (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001).

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For the CSCE itself, the end of Cold War marked a significant transformation. The signing of the Paris Charter for New Europe in 1990 started a process of institutionalisation that in 1994 led it to change its name to the OSCE. In the international context of the immediate post-Cold War years, the organisation increasingly focused on supporting democratisation in post-Eastern bloc countries. At the same time, it worked on the politico-military aspects of security such as conflict resolution and confidence-­building—that is, measures to lessen the fear of conflict—first putting these to the test in the war that broke out in the ex-Yugoslav states of the Balkans in 1991.11 As quickly became clear from this, the OSCE retained, and even further expanded, the comprehensive concept of security that had already been outlined in the Helsinki Final Act. The result of this was that human rights and economic and environmental governance were considered equally vital for peace and security as were arguably more traditional politico-military activities.12 European integration was not mentioned as being among the key objectives of the CSCE in the Helsinki Final Act or the Paris Charter. Indeed, neither the CSCE nor the OSCE ever produced a definition for how they perceive(d) ‘integration’ as a concept. However, the core idea behind the CSCE was to bring together European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain in order to advance cooperation and peace. Although this did not entail the adoption of a single, shared political system with compatible norms and values, it inevitably led to some convergence and an exchange of ideas. After the establishment of the OSCE, the commitment to shared values was increasingly articulated in terms of the transition from Eastern bloc to democratic market economies, and emerged as a central objective of the organisation.13 In this sense, integration in Europe has been one of the major elements motivating the work of the CSCE/OSCE from the very beginning—regardless of whether or not either body acknowledged it as such. However, the idea of integration within the CSCE/OSCE was never (and continues not to be) based on creating new institutional structures to which member countries might accede. Instead, the emphasis has always 11  Christian Nünlist, ‘Helsinki+40 in the Historical Context’, Security and Human Rights 25, no 2 (2014): 198–209. 12  OSCE Secretariat Geneva, ‘The OSCE Concept of Comprehensive and Co-operative Security: An overview of major milestones’ (2009), 1, available at https://www.osce.org/ secretariat/37592?download=true (accessed 1 August 2019). 13  Nünlist 2014, ‘Helsinki+40 in the Historical Context’, 202–3.

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been on more informal exchanges and reaching uniformity in the norms and values its member states articulate. Unlike the OSCE, the EU has established political and legal regulations to guide its member states towards these goals. And yet while membership itself is an important step along this path, it has also become something that, for EU candidate countries, is considered part and parcel of their eventually joining the EU.14 The difference in working cultures and general approaches to international affairs has in other words not stopped the OSCE from coordinating with the EU or contributing to its goals. On the contrary, it can be argued that the OSCE served as an inspiration for the EU because of the way it has linked security to broader questions about human rights and economics.15 The flip side of this is that as the EU has emerged as a dominant actor in European affairs, it has also sought to shape the work of other regional organisations like the OSCE.16 This has not always meant direct cooperation: indeed, the EU has not shied away from trying to create a favourable environment for other organisations if it enables it to advance its own (political) objectives. For the OSCE this has included the EU offering political support for its work on human rights and help in election monitoring.17 The OSCE has also been a useful partner to the EU in terms of forwarding the Brussels agenda in non-EU members. Here the breadth of the OSCE’s membership comes into its own, and its long-term field presence provides it with a certain influence in areas where the EU might well have comparatively little influence. It is in this guise that the OSCE seems to have developed an important role as a Europeanising actor—although it has not promoted institutional integration per se. The OSCE itself has not put forth a definition for its approach to Europeanisation, but the concept has gained a great deal of attention in the theoretical literature. Most of the scholarship on 14   Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier, ‘The Politics of European Union Enlargement: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives’, in Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier (eds.), The Politics of European Union Enlargement: Theoretical Approaches (London: Routledge, 2005), 3–29. 15  As does Peter Van Ham, ‘EU–OSCE Relations: Partners or Rivals in Security?’, in Knud Erik Jørgensen (ed.), The European Union and International Organizations (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 145–62. 16  Ben Rosamond, ‘Conceptualising the EU Model of Governance in World Politics’, European Foreign Policy Review 10 no. 4 (2005): 463–78. 17  Van Ham, ‘EU–OSCE Relations’, 135–36.

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Europeanisation has characterised it as the EU’s leverage and influence on non-members and has subsequently studied it as a process of adapting the norms, values and standards that the EU has set for those countries. However, it can also be seen to incorporate aspects of cultural diffusion and as a more general process of policy adaptation beyond the confines of the EU.18 Bearing in mind the main aim of this volume is to ‘provincialise’ the EU, it is important here to underscore the role of the OSCE in promoting values that are considered ‘European’ rather than being the sole preserve of the EU. These values also include the protection of the environment, whether through the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements or the adoption of national legislation.19 Looked at like this, the OSCE can be argued to have promoted Europeanisation in two distinct ways. On the one hand, as briefly mentioned above, during the 2000s it came to some extent to be seen as a first step towards EU membership for countries in the accession process, or as a facilitator of the relationship between the EU and those countries in its local neighbourhood.20 This role may be regarded as a concrete contribution to European unity, although it is one also shared by many subregional organisations—as Martin Dangerfield’s chapter in this volume points out. On the other hand, however, the role of the OSCE in promoting Europeanisation is not limited to paving the way for the EU membership. Instead, the values of Europeanisation and pan-European cooperation are rooted in the historical foundation of the OSCE and continue to be integral to its work. The commitments made by its participating states—most clearly to human rights and the fostering of friendly relations—further strengthen this strand, and do so without employing the sort of institutionally binding character of cooperation that is a hallmark of the EU. What is more, the absence of these strong institutions may in fact have enabled the OSCE to engage with countries that maintain vastly different political systems to EU countries. It has therefore had an integrating influence in non-EU member states in a way that the EU is unlikely to 18  Kevin Featherstone, ‘Introduction: In the name of “Europe”’, in Kevin Featherstone and Claudio M. Radaelli (eds.), The Politics of Europeanization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3–26; Johan P.  Olsen, ‘The Many Faces of Europeanization’, Journal of Common Market Studies 40, no. 5 (2002): 921–52. 19  Tanja Börzel and Aron Buzogány, ‘Environmental Organisations and the Europeanisation of Public Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Biodiversity Governance. Environmental Politics 19, no. 5 (2010): 708–35. 20  Van Ham, ‘EU–OSCE Relations’, 136.

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replicate. This does not make the nature of the OSCE’s work any easier, though. Russia, in particular, has in recent years been increasingly critical of the OSCE’s election monitoring missions and efforts to monitor the status of human rights in its own participating states.21 The reverse of this argument is also that its weaker institutional and organisational coherence may have contributed to the OSCE being sidelined in the field of European cooperation.22 After all, the EU has more political and financial leverage, and while it attaches not insignificant conditions to which accession countries must adhere, it does so while offering the prospect of rich economic rewards through full emersion in its Single Market. This gives it significant power to determine the agenda of European integration. However, the onset of the crisis in Ukraine in 2014 led to something of a resurgence for the OSCE in the ensemble of European security. Its capacities in crisis management and conflict resolution gained a new significance, strengthened by its position as a mediator with other European stakeholders.23 As Johanna Rainio-Niemi has pointed out, organisational neutrality becomes more valuable in international politics as conflicts heat up, and the OSCE can be seen as an impartial actor in the European context thanks to the fact that its membership includes so many different European states.24 These developments are a useful reminder that both international relations and international organisations are subject to constant change. Seemingly predetermined patterns may undergo profound shifts due to an unexpected event or development, prompting previously irrelevant actors to re-emerge on the international stage. Once irrelevant IOs might therefore find themselves back at the centre of attention. The history of the OSCE in the broader framework of post-1945 European integration needs to be considered against this ever-changing background.

21  Sven Biscop, ‘The EU, the OSCE and the European Security Architecture: Network or Labyrinth?’, Asia-Europe Journal 4, no. 1 (2006): 25–9; Nünlist, ‘Helsinki+40  in the Historical Context’, 205–06. 22  Van Ham, ‘EU–OSCE Relations’, 145; Biscop, The EU, the OSCE and the European Security Architecture, 25–6. 23  Stefan Lehne, ‘Reviving the OSCE: European Security and the Ukraine Crisis’, Carnegie Europe Report (2015): 1–2, available at https://carnegieeurope.eu/2015/09/22/revivingosce-european-security-and-ukraine-crisis-pub-61362 (accessed 5 March 2019). 24  Johanna Rainio-Niemi, ‘Cold War Neutrality in Europe: Lessons to be Learned’, in Heinz Gärtner (ed.), Engaged Neutrality: An Evolved Approach to the Cold War (London: Lexington Books, 2017), 15–36.

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The OSCE in Post-Conflict Western Balkans The close of the conflict in Kosovo in the summer of 1999 marked the end of a period of violence in the Balkans, brought about by the disintegration of Yugoslavia that began in 1991. It gave rise to a vast international relief and reconstruction effort as various actors including the EU, the OSCE and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) came together to launch the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. Described as a comprehensive programme for peace and security, its premise was that the future of the Balkans had to be shaped regionally, not on the basis of the interests of any one individual country.25 Although the Stability Pact was placed under the auspices of the OSCE to allow participation of non-EU actors like the United States and Russia, the EU was considered paramount in the framework.26 This was mainly due to the EU accession perspective—doubtless an important motivation for the Balkan countries to work with the Pact—but also relevant here was the additional financial support that the EU could offer.27 That said, the OSCE also saw itself as having a responsibility to act in the Western Balkans. This in part was based on the principle, emphasised by the OSCE, that it should be the first resort for conflict prevention if it involved one of its participating states. Its presence on the ground, in terms of both manpower and operational knowhow, also meant it could make a genuine contribution to decision-making and capacity-building.28 At the same time, the OSCE made much of the fact that its comprehensive concept of security—incorporating, as we already know, politico-military, environmental and economic as well as human security aspects—meant it was best placed to respond.29 Taken together, these arguments allowed the OSCE to move from being involved in direct conflict resolution and disarmament to helping assist in long-term stability-building activities such as dealing with energy security, minority rights and democratisation efforts.30 The  Buchsbaum, ‘The OSCE and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, 62–79.  Lykke Friis and Anna Murphy, ‘“Turbo-Charged Negotiations”: The EU and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe’, Journal of European Public Policy 7, no. 5 (2000), 767–86. 27  Dimitar Bechev, ‘Carrots, Sticks and Norms: The EU and Regional Cooperation in Southeast Europe’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 8 no. 1 (2006): 27–43. 28  Bull, ‘Opening Address’. 29  Buchsbaum, ‘The OSCE and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe’, 62. 30  OSCE, ‘The OSCE Concept of Comprehensive and Co-operative Security’. 25 26

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c­ontribution to the post-conflict situation in the Western Balkans provided the OSCE with an opportunity to demonstrate its relevance in the post-Cold War security architecture, including the objective of uniting different European countries together. In March 2000 the Permanent Council of the OSCE—its principal decision-making body—accepted a regional strategy for South Eastern Europe, where it committed to developing ‘a comprehensive and interdimensional policy on region-wide and cross-border issues in South Eastern Europe’.31 The Vienna Declaration on the Role of the OSCE in South-­ Eastern Europe, adopted in November 2000, emphasised the link between reconciliation within the region and integration with other states in Europe.32 In order to contribute to these overarching goals of European security and integration, the OSCE also envisioned developing its own projects that would ‘add value’ to this regional work.33 Some aspects of the added value that the OSCE saw it could offer came across in the focus points outlining its strategic objectives. It emphasised the comprehensive character of stability-building, linking together the military, human, economic and environmental aspects of security.34 It also pointed out the need for coordination between international organisations in order to avoid duplicating activities which, by virtue of the variety of the OSCE’s policy remit, necessarily curtailed some of the OSCE’s freedom of manoeuvre. In addition, the OSCE highlighted that consultation with other countries in the region was a necessity to underscore these stability-building efforts.35 The OSCE thus assumed a role simultaneously as a coordinating body for international organisations and as a facilitator between them and the countries concerned. It was aware that its activities overlapped with those of many others, and was therefore encouraged to look for less conventional topics upon which to focus its attention. Although the OSCE continued to work on its traditional themes like democratisation, it also 31  OSCE, ‘Regional Strategy for South Eastern Europe: 275th Plenary Meeting, Decision No. 344. PC Journal No. 275, Agenda 7’, 16 March 2000, 1. 32  OSCE, MC.DOC/2/00, ‘Eighth Meeting of the Ministerial Council 27 and 28 November 2000: Vienna Declaration on the Role of the OSCE in South-Eastern Europe’, 2000, 2. Available at https://www.osce.org/pc/26667?download=true (Last visited 30.1.2019). 33  OSCE, ‘Regional Strategy for South Eastern Europe: 275th Plenary Meeting’, 2000, 2. 34  Buchsbaum, The OSCE and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe 2000, 72. 35  OSCE, ‘Regional Strategy for South Eastern Europe’, 1–2.

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sought to identify new issues and approaches. This was the spur for the OSCE to incorporate an environmental security component into its work.

The OSCE Approach to Environmental Security In 2001, the OSCE organised a seminar in Berlin under the title ‘Strengthening the OSCE’s Role in the Realm of Environment and Security’. Its aim was to consider environment and security questions in the OSCE region, focusing on ‘how to use and address environmental issues in conflict prevention and post-conflict rehabilitation’.36 In addition, the idea was to discuss the role of the OSCE in making more explicit the linkage between the environment and regional security. The Berlin seminar was a turning point in the development of environmental security cooperation in the Balkans for two reasons. First, it was a concentrated effort to set down the OSCE’s approach to linking the environment and security. In effect, this was the OSCE positioning itself strategically both as an actor in the Balkans and an important IO in its own right with specialist knowledge of environmental security issues.37 The result was that, in the following years, it would serve as an inspiration for a great deal of the work done by others on the topic. Second, it presented the Balkans as an interesting region for environmental security work. This not only heightened the OSCE’s interest in focusing on the region but encouraged other IOs to likewise take an interest in the Balkans. Despite its significance, the Berlin seminar was not the first venture for the OSCE into the realm of the environment. As mentioned above, the CSCE already had an environmental component to it as part of the Helsinki Final Act. Thereafter, the cross-border nature of environmental problems, and their link with the broader security and stability of the European continent, regularly featured on the agenda of CSCE and later OSCE meetings, with topics like pollution, water governance and energy production all noted as possible areas of conflict and contention between participating states.38 It was only towards the end of the 1990s, however, 36  OSCE, ‘Follow-up Seminar to the 7th and 8th Economic Forum: Strengthening the OSCE’s Role in the Realm of Environment and Security’, July 2001, available at https:// www.osce.org/eea/42179?download=true (accessed 21 July 2019). 37  OSCE, ‘Follow-up Seminar to the 7th and 8th Economic Forum’. 38  OSCE, ‘Report on the CSCE/OSCE and the Environment 1975–2000’, June 2001, 9–10, available at http://www.osce.org/eea/42320?download=true (accessed 13 March 2019).

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that more concrete linkages were made between environment and conflict.39 Indeed, in 1999 the OSCE dedicated its Seventh Economic Forum to talks about the ‘security aspects in the field of the environment’. The discussion here revolved around three relatively general themes—energy, water and public participation—but it also featured an informal working group on environmental security. As an outcome, the working group called for ways to clarify the OSCE’s role and future agenda in responding to the environmental aspects of security, to clarify the linkages between environment and security, to analyse the root causes of environmental conflicts within OSCE participating States and to identify potential ‘hot spots’ in the OSCE region.40

The OSCE was, moreover, envisioned as a coordinating body that could ‘catalyze discussion among the various stakeholders at the local, national, regional and international levels’ and ‘improve multilateral co-operation, creating new partnerships between international institutions and regional organizations’.41 The working group further proposed another workshop to consider policy approaches for the OSCE on environment and security.42 This was arguably a major turning point. For, in time, the Economic Forum—later renamed Economic and Environmental Forum—became the annual meeting of the OSCE in which to discuss economic, environmental and security questions. And while today it does not have a mandate for decision-making, it can provide input into current debates and help draft recommendations and follow-up actions. It also brings together key stakeholders from governments, civil society, business and international organisations.43 Indication of the Seventh Forum’s impact was felt in the following Eighth Economic Forum which took place in 2000, with discussions spilling over into one of three main working groups dedicated to the question 39   R.  Zaagman, ‘OSCE Conflict Prevention and the Economic and Environmental Dimension’, Helsinki Monitor 10, no. 4 (1999), 40–3. 40  OSCE, GAL/3/99, 21–22, ‘Seventh Meeting of the Economic Forum in Prague 25–28 May 1999: Summary. OSCE Senior Council E’, available at http://www.osce.org/ eea/42132?download=true (accessed 13 March 2019). 41  OSCE, ‘Seventh Meeting of the Economic Forum’, 21–2. 42  Ibid., 21. 43  OSCE Secretariat Geneva, ‘Economic and Environmental Forum’, 2019, available at https://www.osce.org/secretariat/eeforum (accessed 21 July 2019).

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of the ‘environmental impact of conflicts and rehabilitation measures’. That the Balkan conflict had ended by this date shifted the focus to post-­ conflict stability, and the working group was keen to give a voice to representatives from the Balkan countries who pointed out that environmental issues were only likely to lead to further hostilities if they were aggravated by political motives. It hence called, among other things, for the coordination of economic, health and social-political questions with environmental actions, but also suggested that an independent actor would be needed to build confidence between the countries.44 These views indicated that there was already support within the region for linking environmental issues to a broader context of norms and values, and that the OSCE was the most appropriate actor to help cement this. Although the Berlin seminar set out to operationalise environmental security, it remained unclear exactly what those present meant by the concept. They did nevertheless concur with the view that environmental issues belonged at the core of any comprehensive security strategy. In this setting, the concept of environmental security thus ended up being very broad, with nothing within its remit explicitly ruled out. However, the OSCE tended to emphasise the role of the environment in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, which most obviously coincided with its own mandate and therefore further justified its involvement in the topic. For the OSCE, the Western Balkans was especially relevant from an environmental security point of view because of the damage inflicted on the environment by the conflicts of the 1990s and the legacy of pollution left by industrial production during the years under socialism.45 However, the linkage of the environment to security could not be set apart from the wider political context of stabilisation in the Balkans; quite the reverse in fact, as it was seen as a way to reinforce these efforts. A background paper for the Berlin seminar specifically noted that environmental issues would have an important role not only in reconstruction following damage inflicted by previous conflicts, but also in ‘democratisation, nation-­ building and regional stabilisation’.46 Environmental security could have an impact beyond the immediate rehabilitation efforts, potentially also 44  OSCE, EF.GAL/11/00, OSCE Senior Council, ‘Summary: Eighth Meeting of the Economic Forum in Prague 11–14 April 2000’, available at http://www.osce.org/ eea/42131?download=true (accessed 14 March 2019). 45  OSCE, ‘Follow-up Seminar to the 7th and 8th Economic Forum’, 29–30. 46  Ibid.

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contributing to the countries’ development prospects. This long-term perspective is what linked environmental security to the broader goals of integration and Europeanisation. The conclusions of the Berlin seminar outlined the need to move from simply discussing the topic of environmental security and instead acting on the matter. As far as possible fields of action for the OSCE were concerned, the seminar highlighted early warning systems for environmental conflict prevention and public participation in environmental decision-­ making. In terms of concrete steps, the conclusions proposed joining forces with other international organisations, such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)—discussed by Daniel Stinsky in his chapter in this volume—and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In addition, the role of the OSCE field missions was delineated as being that of ‘door openers’, helping to bring the question of environmental security to the local level.47 Even with ever more concrete strategic plans and the clearly stated intention to focus more squarely on the concept of environmental security, the application of the idea in practice was not simple. The topic was still new, and there were different views even among OSCE participating states about its utility. In particular, countries like Russia and Turkey were opposed to connecting any new issue like environment to their own security policies.48 Ultimately, though, enough countries and IOs were sufficiently interested in the subject that the OSCE continued to dedicate time, energy and resources to enhance the region’s environmental security. By implication, the OSCE became a key part of the wider effort that worked to maintain stability and enhance cooperation in the Western Balkans.

The OSCE in the Environment and Security Initiative In the ministerial conference ‘Environment in Europe’ held in May 2003 in Kiev, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UNEP and the OSCE together launched their new cooperation initiative

 Ibid., 98–101.  Emma Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in Post-Conflict Western Balkans’, PhD thesis, University of Helsinki, 2018, 134–5. 47 48

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under the banner ‘Environment and Security Initiative’.49 According to its introductory document, the ENVSEC sought to identify and evaluate the security risks which emerged from the environment in the South East European and Central Asian regions.50 A background document from 2002 further clarified that the idea was to mobilise national and international financing for environmental issues while also promoting institutional cooperation and regional networking. During its inception phase, ENVSEC worked through ‘multi-stakeholder consultations’ in both target regions, bringing together decision-makers and authorities from the affected countries. The goal was to come up with ‘[r]egionally-­appropriate definitions of the environment and security linkages of greatest relevance’.51 These processes would result in thematic maps that charted environmental security threats. ENVSEC was to a great extent based on the discussions that had earlier taken place within the OSCE’s Economic Forum and the Berlin seminar. The ideas raised on these occasions fed into ENVSEC activity plans, and the OSCE came to have an important role in facilitating cooperation among the three main organisations involved.52 Emphasis was given to the ‘coalition-building potential’ of environmental issues, which it was argued could represent a ‘powerful tool for preventing conflict’.53 In addition, ENVSEC relied on a ‘regional approach’, which was expected to enable confidence-building measures to be better adapted to local realities.54 The two chosen target regions—South Eastern Europe and Central Asia—had

49  Later on, the UNECE and Regional Environmental Centre (REC) also joined the ENVSEC partnership, while NATO became an associate partner. 50   OSCE, UNDP and UNEP, ‘Environment and Security Initiative Addressing Environmental Risks and Promoting Peace and Stability – The post Kiev process’, 24 April 2003, available at https://www.iisd.org/pdf/2003/envsec_post_kiev.pdf (accessed 15 March 2019). 51  OSCE, UNDP and UNEP, ‘Environment and Security: A Framework for Cooperation in Europe: Revised Draft Background Paper’, 8 January 2002, 7–8, available at http://www. envsec.org/publications/Environment%20and%20Security.%20A%20framework%20for%20 cooperation%20in%20Europe.%20Draft%20background%20paper_January%202002.pdf (accessed 30 January 2019). 52  Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in PostConflict Western Balkans’, 149. 53  OSCE, UNDP and UNEP, ‘Environment and Security: A Framework for Cooperation in Europe’, 6. 54  Ibid., 7.

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also repeatedly been highlighted as interesting for environmental security activities in the OSCE Forums.55 In a broader regional sense, ENVSEC placed environmental security cooperation in the context of Europeanisation. The introduction of the initiative took place as a part of the ‘Environment for Europe’ process, driven by the UNECE, which supported Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia and South Eastern Europe in improving their environmental standards. Beyond direct peacebuilding and conflict prevention, ENVSEC also aimed to contribute to processes such as implementing the rule of law, encouraging participatory decision-making and adopting or implementing multilateral or regional environmental agreements.56 Although it was not explicitly stated, these themes tied the initiative to wider multilateral efforts for democratisation and Europeanisation by integrating the target countries to a rules-based approach to governance, whether specifically on environmental issues or in more general terms. In the Western Balkans, ENVSEC organised a regional consultation in Belgrade in December 2002, with participation from ministries and authorities from various countries in the region. It identified several environmental problems of concern, but also tied these to the issues of governance, regulation and technology as well as the post-Cold War and post-conflict contexts.57 In other words, the participants of the consultation recognised that ecological phenomena alone rarely caused security threats, but when tied to societal and political factors were likely to aggravate underlying instabilities. The final report prepared on the basis of the consultations pointed out that there were several ‘hot spots’ in the Balkans that were highly damaged by pollution and urgently required remediation. Other issues that were highlighted were the environmental impact of the mining industry, governance of shared waterways and the need for increased regional cooperation among the countries.58 The role of the regional consultations was not only to provide information to ENVSEC, but also to work as a tool for confidence-building. By gathering actors from regional governments and authorities around the  For example OSCE, ‘Follow-up Seminar to the 7th and 8th Economic Forum’, 29–30.   OSCE, UNDP and UNEP, ‘Environment and Security Initiative Addressing Environmental Risks and Promoting Peace and Stability – The post-Kiev process’, 6. 57  ENVSEC generally used the term ‘South Eastern Europe’, which covers a wider region. 58  OSCE, UNDP and UNEP, ‘Environment and Security – Transforming risks into cooperation: The case of Central Asia and South Eastern Europe’, 2003, 16–24, available at https://www.iisd.org/pdf/2003/envsec_cooperation.pdf (accessed 17 March 2019). 55 56

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same table, ENVSEC aimed to start a dialogue comprising different actors from different countries. If they were able to agree on environmental issues, so the argument went, it was possible to extend that understanding to other issues as well. What was more, since the environment was often not a priority topic for policymakers in the Balkans, this form of consultation was a way to get regional actors to acknowledge the existence of environmental problems and the need to address them through direct action. This was also perceived as a way of promoting that the Balkans countries were central actors in the ENVSEC process, thereby strengthening their sense of ownership of the scheme.59 As the regional consultations demonstrate, an important part of the work undertaken by ENVSEC dealt with politicising environmental issues. The initiative aimed at placing the environment higher on the political agenda and integrating it as a topic of concern for high-level diplomacy and international policymaking. This stood in contrast to some other environmental peacebuilding initiatives that were often based on the idea that the environment was a politically neutral topic and therefore suitable for exploring pathways towards reconciliation. Yet on closer inspection, environmental issues were not (and are still not) free from political, economic and other interests. Therefore, by highlighting the political aspect rather than discarding it, ENVSEC made it possible to acknowledge and deal with any politicised controversies as they arose.60 The focus on the political aspects of environmental issues can also be seen as ENVSEC’s contribution to the Europeanisation process. Rules-­ based environmental governance in itself is a norm promoted by the EU.  But it is also included in the founding documents of the CSCE/OSCE. In addition, the impact of ENVSEC’s work was not necessarily limited to the environmental sector but had the potential to contribute to governance and democratisation in a more general sense. In other words, the ENVSEC’s efforts to contribute to the stability of the region cannot be extricated from this broader, normative frame. For the OSCE, its decision to politicise environmental issues was based on the same rationale that had driven its involvement in ENVSEC. Among the partner organisations of the initiative, the OSCE was the most oriented to policymaking and had specifically pointed out that it would not 59  Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in PostConflict Western Balkans’, 155. 60  Ibid., 276.

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implement environmental security projects unless they had a clear political aspect.61 Yet its leverage in security policy and diplomacy was considered indispensable for ENVSEC. Overall, this all seemed to justify the need for the OSCE’s engagement on new aspects of security. As with the OSCE Economic Forums, ENVSEC had refrained from advancing a uniform definition of environmental security in order not to rule out new, potentially relevant themes. As a result, the scope of projects ended up being very varied—to the extent that it was sometimes difficult to pin down what the different ENVSEC projects had in common. The various ENVSEC schemes which emerged only became more diffuse over time, and it was not uncommon to see less emphasis placed on the peacebuilding and conflict resolution and more focus centred on democratisation and wellbeing, although still retaining the environmental context.62 One example of the evolution of environmental security themes is a project implemented by the OSCE on participatory decision-making on the environment, which will be discussed in the next section.

Aarhus Centres: An OSCE Flagship for Environmental Security and Democracy One of the most visible projects developed by the ENVSEC in the Balkans was based around the so-called Aarhus Convention. The Convention aims to promote sustainable development through participatory policymaking, combining broader questions relating to the environment and with the attainment of human rights. Having been officially adopted in 1998, the convention was slowly ratified by all the Western Balkan countries and the project commenced work in the Balkans in 2009.63 Although the Convention was overseen by the UNECE, it was the OSCE that took primary responsibility for its implementation within ENVSEC. This is likely to have been due again to its substantial presence on the ground in the region, which made it better equipped to implement a project

 OSCE, ‘Follow-up Seminar to the 7th and 8th Economic Forum’, 6.  Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in PostConflict Western Balkans’, 271–83. 63  ENVSEC and OSCE, ‘The Aarhus Centres – A Brief Introduction’, 2012, available at http://www.osce.org/secretariat/89067?download=true (accessed 17 March 2019). 61 62

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specifically aimed at improving local participation. In addition, the focus on good governance coincided with the OSCE’s overall objectives.64 The major element of the Aarhus Project was the creation of the so-­ called Aarhus Centres, designed to be established in several towns around the Balkan region. The centres aimed to strengthen environmental governance by providing a public space for participation in environmental decision-­making. This meant, for example, working on awareness-raising campaigns or offering legal assistance on environmental issues. The centres also provided local citizens with access to services so that they could file complaints against environmental violations and organise open hearings and discussions between local authorities and business representatives on any industrial development that was likely to have a substantial environmental impact.65 The centres could also work as a channel to and for local governance, which was often was under-resourced and opaque to the public.66 The Aarhus Centres established in different Western Balkan countries formed a regional network, whose members could support one another and exchange information, thereby further contributing to regional cooperation. In addition to regional meetings with Aarhus representatives, the network organised study visits and training. Within the network, these exchanges were considered useful and they are likely to have increased local ownership of the initiative.67 However, the impact on regional confidence-­building appears to have been limited to the immediate stakeholders of the Aarhus Centres.68 The Aarhus project represented an exciting new opportunity for the OSCE to become more heavily involved in environmental democracy. For the underlying recognition of the Aarhus Centres was that security was inextricably linked to and dependent on democratic development. 64  Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in PostConflict Western Balkans’, 235–37. 65  ENVSEC and OSCE. ‘The Aarhus Centres – A Brief Introduction’. 66  Emma Hakala, ‘Cooperation for the Enhancement of Environmental Citizenship in the Context of Securitization: The Case of an OSCE Project in Serbia’, Journal of Civil Society 8, no. 4 (2012): 385–99. 67  Author interview with a representative from the Aarhus Centre in Sarajevo, 19 May 2017; Author interview with a representative from the Aarhus Centre in Banja Luka, 30 June 2017. 68  Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in PostConflict Western Balkans’, 235–37.

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According to the OSCE, its experience in addressing environment and security risks had led it to understand ‘the necessity to support civil society involvement for this co-operation to be effective’.69 Therefore, the principal aim of the project was to build capacity for good environmental governance in the Western Balkans and thus ensure its sustainability independently of external assistance. In addition to financial resources, this required local authorities and officials to have adequate expertise so that they could act on environmental issues, retain the environmental agenda and offer sustained support to local administrations. Likewise, there needed to be a demand for environmental governance from the general public: keeping these outlets open would thus be central if citizens were to keep being able to highlight environmental crimes and if civil society organisations were to be able to help the fight against environmental damage.70 Put another way, the Aarhus project incorporated the goals of Europeanisation in that it attempted to influence political and administrative practices at the local level. The OSCE itself described the Aarhus Convention as a ‘tool’ for environmental governance, specifically referring to its potential for helping ‘the [target] countries’ efforts in addressing environment and security challenges’.71 The adoption of norms to better coincide with international agreements that the OSCE also promoted came to be seen as a necessity for the sustainability of the project. Indeed, this normative influence was a precondition to its success. At the same time, the Aarhus project was also an attempt to promote regional integration and maintain stability. It is unsurprising, for instance, that the regional network of Aarhus Centres relied on the assumption that increased cooperation and interaction would be beneficial for democratisation, peace and development in the Western Balkan countries. From this point of view the project coincided directly with the OSCE’s cooperative security approach, predicated on the assumption that cooperation was beneficial to all countries participating in it.72 Crucially, the EU was not a major force when it came to creating these centres. It was in fact rarely mentioned in the relevant project plans. The  ENVSEC and OSCE, ‘The Aarhus Centres – A Brief Introduction’, 3.  Hakala, ‘International Organisations and the Securitisation of the Environment in PostConflict Western Balkans’, 235–37. 71  OSCE Bosnia, ‘Project Title: Promoting the Implementation of Aarhus Convention in the South-Eastern European Region’, OSCE Bosnia (2010), 1. 72  OSCE, ‘The OSCE Concept of Comprehensive and Co-operative Security’, 1. 69 70

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impetus instead came from the commitment by the OSCE to unify these states and bring them to the point of having a much greater commitment to the values, norms and stability that were shared by other states in Europe. Put another way, the experience of the OSCE shows that many of the central values and norms associated with EU-driven integration have in fact been independently promoted by several other organisations. The main distinction, from an institutional perspective, is of course that the OSCE did all this on a much looser basis. In the Western Balkans, this meant that the processes were not tied to a similar progression towards the goal of membership. Instead, the OSCE followed a more informal but seemingly no less compelling approach, even if it shared with the EU the goal of spreading the benefits to its members of a more secure and stable continent.

Conclusions This chapter has suggested that the values and norms of both Europeanisation and integration have been ingrained in the OSCE’s founding documents ever since it was first established as the CSCE. In the Helsinki Final Act, the participating states committed to the principles of peace, security and cooperation, as well as human rights and basic freedoms. After the end of the Cold War, the promotion of democratic governance and rule of law became even more important focus points for the OSCE, especially in the countries of the former Eastern bloc. It is true, of course, that as the EU expanded eastwards, the relevance of the OSCE both as an organisation and one that espoused unity among its members diminished. The conditions and incentives for Europeanisation were in this context increasingly linked to the goal of membership in the EU. The fundamental difference between the EU and OSCE and the sort of cooperation they fostered thus came clearly into view. EU accession has always been an institutional process that obliges member states to adopt laws and policies; the OSCE’s approach by contrast has been one based on a more informal commitment to norms and values. The OSCE’s approach has allowed a wider range of participation by countries with varied political systems, but the binding force of the commitments is also lower. It was the seeming decline of the OSCE’s raison d’être, but also its agility as an organisation, that allowed it to expand its remit and develop new fields of action during the 2000s. In the Western Balkans, its concept of comprehensive security yielded the potential to combine conflict

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resolution to more long-term objectives of democratisation and stability. In addition, the OSCE incorporated the environmental dimension of security, enabling it to build cooperation and integration among regional countries based on environmental issues. As environmental security cooperation gained prominence, the OSCE, with other organisations, was then able to launch the Environment and Security Initiative. As it further explored the linkage between environmental and security issues, its work increasingly moved from conflict-related topics to questions of stability and sustainable development. This allowed the OSCE to bring into its purview environmental security as a core area of its work, and one that became increasingly central to its long-held goals of supporting democratisation and good governance. At the same time, environmental security also could be used as a tool for promoting the OSCE’s own, unique approach to regional cooperation and, in the broader sense of the term, Europeanisation. The project devised to implement the Aarhus Convention is perhaps the best example of where the OSCE combined its approach to cooperative security with the promotion of good governance. Civil society participation and democratic rights were seen as preconditions to stability. As a result, the project aimed to diffuse a set of values and norms, based on the Aarhus Convention and various other international agreements. The OSCE’s work on environmental security thereafter offered an alternative way to promote regional integration and Europeanisation through reconciliation and transboundary cooperation. The ENVSEC framework may also have provided an alternative to the EU integration process that was primarily oriented towards the single goal of EU accession. The underlying objectives of cooperation and Europeanisation were, however, shared and promoted by the OSCE as well.

PART II

Imagining, Negotiating and Building Regional Integration

CHAPTER 6

Not Giving Up Sovereignty: The British Labour Party’s Alternative Vision of International Cooperation, 1933–1951 Ettore Costa

Labour’s policy towards European cooperation has been a prime subject of investigations, with some historians arguing that the Party, like Britain more generally, missed the boat in the 1950s and never recovered.1 For their part, Italian socialists and German social democrats (SPD) shifted from rejecting the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) to supporting the European Economic Community (EEC)—the forebearer of 1   Clemens A.  Wurm, ‘Britain and European Integration, 1945–63’, Contemporary European History 7, no. 2 (1998): 249–61; Roger Broad, Labour’s European Dilemma: From Bevin to Blair (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 31; Michael Newman, ‘The British Labour Party’, in Richard T. Griffiths (ed.), Socialist Parties and the Question of Europe in the 1950s (Leiden: E.J.  Brill, 1993), 177; Anthony Forster, Euroscepticism in Contemporary British Politics, Opposition to Europe in the British Conservative and Labour Parties since 1945 (London: Routledge, 2002), 30.

E. Costa (*) University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_6

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today’s European Union (EU)—within a decade. Labour’s story is rather different. While between the 1940s and the 2010s it undoubtedly changed its policies, strategies and ideas—even regarding the EU—its approach to federalism, like its perception of Britain’s global mission and its cultural attitude towards ‘Europe,’ has been marked by strong continuity.2 The reason why the early opposition was not contingent was that British Labourites did not oppose European cooperation; instead, they proposed a vision of cooperation as an alternative to federalism and often repeated this to anyone willing to listen. By the late 1940s, Labour leaders had elaborated a series of arguments in favour of limited, ad hoc cooperation between independent entities, going against centralising federalism and supranational decision-making. The history of Labour’s attitude to European unity has its own prehistory in the Party’s experience with international socialist cooperation, shaping its opposition to any surrender of sovereignty. This chapter covers this prehistory and the events and ideas that weighed upon Labour’s decision-makers in the 1940s. There is, as this volume aims to show, more to European integration than a linear history going from the Schuman Plan creating the ECSC via the EEC to the EU. The buoyant desire for European cooperation after the Second World War found expression not just in one channel. Socialist internationalism promoted a different kind of cooperation within Europe—at first between Eastern and Western Europe, then among Western Europeans—and beyond Europe.3 The overlapping of politicians involved in international socialism and politicians involved in European integration was significant. Using the documentation of the Socialist International (SI) and the British Labour Party, this chapter analyses the transnational socialist network from which these politicians received ideas and learned practices that carried through and ultimately helped shape their approach to European cooperation. By the time British socialists were publishing Feet on the Ground and European Unity—their first 2  Matthew Broad and Oliver Daddow, ‘“Half-Remembered Quotations from Mostly Forgotten Speeches”: The Limits of Labour’s European Policy Discourse’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 12, no. 2 (2010): 205–22; Forster, Euroscepticism in Contemporary British Politics, 2. 3  Ettore Costa, The Labour Party, Denis Healey and the International Socialist Movement: Rebuilding the Socialist International during the Cold War, 1945–1951 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); Talbot C.  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism: European Socialists and International Politics, 1914–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 263–308.

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systematic rejection of European federalism—the debate over the surrender of sovereignty was already old and the arguments had already been thrashed out in the framework of the transnational socialist network.4 Through this interaction, Labour leaders developed a certain disdain and mistrust of continental socialists, although Scandinavian socialists were shown to share a commonality of views with Labour with regard to both socialist and European cooperation. The chapter shows how transnational interactions shaped a crucial policy of a major national party, offering a case study of the benefits and limits of transnational history. Transnational history has challenged the state-­ centred approach by developing new approaches and making it possible to focus on different organisations.5 The concept of ‘transnational network’ describes how actors, united by similar identities or bound by temporary tactical alliances, coordinate their activities across borders and influence decision-making in a decentralised and fragmented way.6 Describing the existence of transnational networks is not enough, however. Rather, it is necessary to assess their influence on decision-making and define the mechanisms they use. Deconstructing the nation state as a monolithic entity does not mean ignoring the national dimension; indeed, domestic resonance is central for the functioning of transnational networks. National interest has not a univocal definition. Actors with preferences and identities different from other national actors contribute to decision-making in a pluralistic democratic society.7 Interest groups, political parties, experts; they can form transnational networks with their foreign counterparts in order to bypass their governments and decrease the information asymmetry when in opposition or to facilitate their policies when in government.

4  Labour Party, Feet on the Ground, A Study of Western Europe (London: Labour Party, 1948); Labour Party, European Unity: A Statement by the National Executive Committee of the British Labour Party (London: Labour Party, 1950). 5  Akira Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Jessica Reinisch, ‘Introduction: Agents of Internationalism’, Contemporary European History 25, no. 2 (2016): 195–205. 6  Karen Heard-Lauréote, ‘Transnational Networks, Informal Governance in the European Political Space’, in Wolfram Kaiser and Peter Starie (eds.), Transnational European Union: Towards a Common Political Space (London: Routledge, 2005), 36–60. 7  Wolfram Kaiser, ‘Transnational Networks in European Governance: The Informal Politics of Integration’, in Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen (eds.), The History of the European Union: Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950–72 (London: Routledge, 2009), 12–33, here 14–5.

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In the more general terms of social sciences, two approaches explain the influence of the network on the actor.8 The rationalist approach sees transnational networks simply as an additional forum for the communication of information and concerns, a negotiation between independently existing agents acting according to their self-interest and perceived incentives and threats. The constructivist approach argues that actors are mutually constructed through repeated interactions. National actors do not simply join transnational networks: they are transnational and national actors. Social learning or socialisation is the key activity to explain changes in preferences and behaviour: instead of following a logic of consequentiality, actors follow a logic of appropriateness. As a heuristic tool, socialisation is useful to describe how rules are internalised and actors of the same network converge to similar behaviour and preferences, even when top-down coercion or rational calculation is absent or weak. Applied to empirical historical research, the theoretical difference between these approaches is less clear. Descriptions of the same events can benefit from using the lens of rational bargaining or socialisation. Alan Milward concentrated on nation states, arguing that the building of European institutions like the ECSC and the EEC was a result of bargaining between national governments acting out of self-interest.9 According to Wolfram Kaiser, socialisation and ‘social learning’ in the transnational networks was the main conduit for the ‘Europeanisation’ of European elites.10 Even acknowledging the existence and importance of a transnational network, there can be opposite interpretations of the role of socialisation.11 What makes constructivism attractive for historians is the knowledge that the enormous weight of the past often trumps rational decisions in the present. Ideas and attitudes that were accepted at an early 8  Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘Treating International Institutions as Social Environments’, International Studies Quarterly 45, no. 4 (2001): 487–515; Jeffrey T.  Checkel, ‘Why Comply? Social Learning and European Identity Change’, International Organization 55, no. 3 (2001): 553–88; Frank Schimmelfennig, ‘Transnational Socialisation and CommunityBuilding in an Integrated Europe’, in Kaiser and Starie (eds.), Transnational European Union, 61–82. 9  Alan S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: Routledge, 1994), 15. 10  Kaiser, ‘Transnational Networks in European Governance’, 18–20. 11  Kristian Steinnes, The British Labour Party, Transnational Influences and European Community Membership, 1960–1973 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2014), 24–5; Matthew Broad, Harold Wilson, Denmark and the Making of Labour European Policy 1958–72 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017), 249–50.

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stage can become interiorised as a form of non-reflective common sense, even when rational reasons no longer exist.12 Socialisation is appealing to researchers looking for the impact of transnational networks. Hence, it has been used in an almost univocal way in order to both reinforce the importance of Europeanisation and internationalisation and reduce the predominance of national politics. However, familiarity is not the only outcome of social interactions: what we might learn from interacting with new people is that we do not trust them or want to deal with them. This chapter applies Talbot Imlay’s intuition that international socialisation of socialist leaders could weaken internationalism: ‘extended social interaction had a fissiparous effect, rooting the deliberations of each party more firmly in national and intraparty politics.’13

International Socialist Cooperation Socialist internationalism in the inter-war period was the formative experience for Labour’s attitude towards Europe. The transnational socialist network was the locus of learning, specifically about engaging in international cooperation without giving up sovereignty. In August 1914, the Second International split, revealing to socialists the need to take the nation into account. The new Labour and Socialist International (LSI) was not reborn until May 1923. Ramsay MacDonald and Friedrich Adler, leaders of the British and Austrian parties respectively, had worked out an uneasy reconciliation between social patriots—who had backed the war policies—and left-wing socialists. The compromise was based on a loose definition of socialism and the agreement to leave domestic politics to national parties. However, Article Four of the LSI Constitution committed socialist parties to coordinate their foreign policy and to obey binding decisions taken by a majority vote.14 It was a limitation on the sovereignty of the national parties, although the LSI was never actually like the Communist International (Comintern). The praxis involved negotiations and verbal compromises to achieve unanimity on all important decisions. The main reformist parties would have resented a stronger involvement. 12  Karl Mannheim, ‘The Problem of Generations’, Psychoanalytic review 57, no. 3 (1970): 378–404. 13  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 14. 14  Leonardo Rapone, La socialdemocrazia europea tra le due guerre: dall’organizzazione della pace alla Resistenza al fascismo, 1923–1936 (Roma: Carocci, 1999), 26–33.

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Indeed, the Labour Party showed signs of reluctance in the 1920s.15 Its internationalist connections were a liability in the 1924 elections, with the British public excited over the revolutionary threats of the Zinoviev Letter and Arthur Henderson’s peace initiatives during the First World War. European socialists were divided on whether to support the League of Nations—thus requiring them to work more closely with the bourgeois state and join national governments—or to act independently from the nation. In addition, due to the phenomenon of ‘internationalisation of domestic quarrels,’16 the factional struggle in one party could be complicated by the interference of foreign socialists backing the dissenters. Thus, the rising threat of fascism, instead of rallying the socialists together, emphasised these pre-existing divisions. Already in 1928 there were calls for the LSI to ally with the Comintern and exercise its power of taking binding decisions, but mostly from exile parties lacking power.17 It was Hitler’s rise that made the power of the LSI the first point on the agenda. In the August 1933 LSI conference in Paris, appeals to take a common stand proved controversial, as the breakdown of understanding became evident. The leading British socialist, Hugh Dalton, argued that the threat of fascism was not urgent but rather only affected countries without real democracy.18 The Danish socialist Alsing Andersen—the second president of the post-1945 Socialist International—agreed: the goal of socialism was not social revolution through class dictatorship, but restoring democracy. The rise of fascism made the British and the Scandinavians closer and made them suspicious of entanglements with continental socialists.19 This lack of solidarity gravely irritated socialists from France, Austria

15  Enzo Collotti, ‘Appunti su Friedrich Adler segretario dell’Internazionale Operaia e Socialista’, in Enzo Collotti (ed.), L’Internazionale Operaia e Socialista tra le due guerre (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1985), 76–92; Christine Collette, The International Faith: Labour’s Attitude to European Socialism, 1918–39 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 87–93. 16  Ettore Costa, ‘The Socialist International and Italian Social Democracy (1948–50): Cultural Differences and the “Internationalisation of Domestic Quarrels”’, Historical Research 91, no. 251 (2018): 160–84. 17  Rapone, La socialdemocrazia europea tra le due guerre, 139–43. 18  Ibid., 252–63. 19  Broad, Harold Wilson, 5; Villy Bergström, ‘Party Program and Economic Policy: The Social Democrats in Government’, in Klaus Misgeld, Karl Molin and Klas Åmark (eds.), Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1992), 131–73, here 140.

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and Italy. Divisions were also clear over the authority of the LSI.20 Adler believed that only a strong International could confront fascism by producing objective analysis, ideological clarity and a detailed programme covering all possible strategies.21 That way, the LSI could coordinate international socialist action. Dalton rejected the need for such coordination. Each national party, he maintained, was best suited to assess its condition and decide its solutions: My point is this; each of the Socialist parties in those still democratic countries must judge of their own conditions in the light of the possibilities which present themselves in each country to promote Socialism and international peace, and I shall say no word which would seem to be in any way an interference in the decisions of each of those parties as to the right course to pursue to strengthen democracy, Socialism and international peace.22

Dalton believed that those ‘living’ parties which had preserved democracy should become the nucleus of the international socialist community, limiting the role of exiles. Andersen said that the absolute duty of the working class was to strengthen its domestic force: But here we do not want to give the impression that international conferences and international resolutions are enough, that it is enough to build up a so-called international Central with the best comrades, who only need to press a button to sink Reaction, Fascism and War into the Earth.23

According to Leonardo Rapone, this was indicative of a ‘fragmentation of socialism as an autonomous agent in international politics.’24 Talbot Imlay agrees: ‘the dominant tendency within the International,’ he argues, ‘was towards autonomous decision-making by each member party.’25 The Munich crisis of 1938 revealed that disagreement between appeasers, neutralists, anti-appeasers and revolutionaries made international

20  Rapone, La socialdemocrazia europea tra le due guerre, 260–3; Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 252–5. 21  Protokoll. Internationale Konferenz der Sozialistischen Arbeiter-Internationale, Paris, Maison de la Mutualité, 21–25 August 1933 (Glashütten: Detlev Auvermann KG, 1933), 7–9. 22  Ibid., 79. 23  Ibid., 203. 24  Rapone, La socialdemocrazia europea tra le due guerre, 263. 25  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 253.

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socialist cooperation impossible.26 At the same time, it showed the LSI to be an ‘amiable futility.’27 The final convulsions of the LSI were not about the threat of fascism and war, but about its reform. A natural alliance emerged between British, Danes, Swedes and Dutch on the primacy of the national framework and the need to protect national parties from outside interferences. Their model for international socialist cooperation was practical and limited, without ideological attachments or discussions. In 1938, Danish and Swedish social democrats declared that the central coordination of socialist parties through the International was no longer tenable; socialist goals could be achieved only through national governments. In January 1939, the Labour Party embraced the idea of reforming the International: ‘the organs of the International should be reconstructed in accordance with the realities of the political situation in the different countries, so as to ensure that the real power within the International shall be in the hands of the living and active Parties.’28 Internationalism was to be kept alive but on the terms British, Scandinavian and Dutch socialists all approved of. The International Secretary of the Labour Party, William Gillies, made it explicit that Labour did not consider Article Four of the LSI constitution binding. To this end, the LSI was considered a ‘consultative and not an authoritative organ.’29 The Scandinavians rejected the idea of binding resolutions, blaming this simplistic idea of internationalism for the past and present failures of the International.30 What was the role of the International? To exchange views, share experience, and reach, if possible, agreement on coordinated actions by unanimity. The new president of the LSI, the Dutch socialist J.W. Albarda, made this explicit in his address to the Labour Party’s Annual Conference in 1939.31 Adler denounced the

26  Leonardo Rapone, ‘La crisi finale dell’Internazionale operaia e socialista’, in Socialisti e l’Europa (Milano: Angeli 1989), 76–80. 27  Denis W.  Healey, ‘The International Socialist Conference 1946–1950’, International Affairs 26, no. 3 (1950): 363–73, here 366. 28  Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester (hereafter LHASC), Labour Party Archive (hereafter LPA), International Sub-Committee (hereafter ISC), 1933, ‘Minutes of the International Sub-Committee’, 23 January 1939. 29  Rolf Steininger, Deutschland und die Sozialistische Internationale nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, Darstellung und Dokumentation (Bonn: Neue Gesellschaft, 1979), 15. 30  Collette, The International Faith, 91. 31  Labour Party Annual Conference Report (hereafter LPACR) 1939, 265.

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alliance of the British and smaller northern European nations, which wanted to be free from any commitment to international organisations. The Second World War meant the end of the LSI. While Labour leaders had been trying to divest themselves from international responsibilities before its outbreak, during the war they embraced their role as leader of the movement. As Gillies said, the Labour Party did not take the leadership but received it.32 During the war, exiled socialists debated how to rebuild the International. Labour’s primary concern was still the avoidance of risks coming from entanglement and loss of independence. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union (USSR), the possibility of creating a unitary International with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was discussed. Even then, the Labourites set rigid conditions: Each of the self-governing, democratic, socialist movements should be free from interference by any outside body. Both Parties should jointly agree to co-operate in promoting the fullest development of these movements in other countries, but only with their consent. […] Both Parties should agree that any future International must be an organ of consultation and not of direction. The International shall have the right and duty to advise and make recommendations, but not to issue instructions.33

The most thoughtful reflection on the British side came from John Price—a trade unionist close to future Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin—in 1945. His blueprints would be faithfully reproduced in the post-war International, proving the predominance of the British in the international socialist community. Price stressed that the Socialist International could only work as a decentralised organisation, abandoning any delusion of a central institution giving orders to the periphery. The national parties, not the central organisation, were the strength of internationalism: ‘The international body is completely dependent upon the national sections. It leans upon them for support; it relies upon them for the breath of life.’34 International cooperation would not be dictated by a superior authority, such as was the case in the Comintern, but a decentralised organisation could still influence the decisions of its members. The international  Rapone, ‘La crisi finale dell’Internazionale operaia e socialista’, 67–70.   LHASC/LPA/ISC/1943, ‘Minutes of the International Sub-Committee’, 14 December 1943. 34  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1945, John Price, ‘International Socialist Action, Problems of Organisation’, February 1945. 32 33

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secretariat would be the forum where the independent parties would compromise in order to achieve their national interests. Without coercive authority, the only means of enforcement for common decisions was to abide by the rule of unanimity: every party would be bound only by decisions taken voluntarily. Decisions would be slower and more difficult to make, but the primary goal was to prevent embarrassment and damage rather than do good. This cooperation was modelled on the International Labour Office, which had had a successful record of assisting national governments in enacting social policies. Price’s internationalism reflected the idea that socialist parties were above all government parties, which had to be assisted, rather than impeded, in carrying out their government responsibilities. It sought international cooperation under conditions of absolute sovereignty. Scandinavian parties likewise opposed the reconstruction of a Socialist International with a central authority after the war, not wanting close association with pro-communist socialists, especially from Eastern Europe.35 Conversely, the Belgian and French socialists strongly supported the idea of the Socialist International actively coordinating the activities of socialist parties. Belgian socialist leader Max Buset explained his support for internationalism on ideological but also practical grounds.36 It was impossible to build ‘socialism in one country’—whether in the Soviet Union or Labour Britain. The urgent economic and social problems could not be solved just at the national level: ‘There is no single aspect of public life to-­ day where it has not been found advantageous to organise internationally.’37 Guy Mollet—leader of the French Socialist Party, Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO)—also believed that most problems were beyond the power of nation states and required international cooperation.38 French and Belgians grew attached to the idea of united Europe as a substitute for the international ‘third force.’39  Costa, The Labour Party, 149.   International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (hereafter IISH), Socialist International (hereafter SI), 235, ‘Stenogramme’, 8 June 1947; Steininger, Deutschland und die Sozialistische Internationale nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 52–7. 37  LHASC/LPA/International Department (hereafter ID), Denis Healey papers (hereafter DH), 03/09, Max Buset to Morgan Phillips, 9 April 1946. 38  Guy Mollet, Témoignages 1905–1975 (Paris: Fondation Guy Mollet, 1977), 60–2. 39  Bruce D. Graham, ‘Choix atlantique our Troisième force internationale?’ in S. Bernstein (ed.) Le Parti socialiste entre Résistance et République (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2000), 157–65, here 165. 35 36

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The General Secretary of the Labour Party, Morgan Phillips, and the new International Secretary, Denis Healey, directed the reconstruction of the Socialist International according to Price’s plan. Most socialists, particularly Scandinavian socialists, agreed to postpone the rebirth of the International and set up a simple liaison committee, which would have been ‘less embarrassing and of more immediate value.’40 In May 1946, a socialist conference in Clacton, England, set up the Socialist Information and Liaison Office (SILO). The Labour-adjacent periodical, Tribune, commented that restoring the LSI would have been ‘immediately impossible and ultimately undesirable’: Moreover, the parties with the experience of power are reluctant to limit their freedom by obligations to a body which in the past failed to produce anything but magniloquent and equivocal manifestos and was always subject to the extravagances of impotent idealism.41

In 1947, a special committee was set up to discuss the future of socialist cooperation.42 The British resented this attempt to return to talks about constitutional and ideological problems: ‘But in the general atmosphere one detected a tendency to revert to the amiable irresolution of the pre-­ war International, to escape from small opportunities for constructive initiative into equivocal or meaningless declarations of general intention.’43 Healey viciously attacked the older conceptions of internationalism as sentimental and out of date.44 Buset’s plan, backed by the French, was for the restoration of the International authorised to make binding decisions with a two-thirds majority, leaving national parties with the power to make only smaller, tactical decisions.45 The International would have a strong and well-­ financed international bureaucracy, able to implement directly its decisions. Buset’s goal was to make the Socialist International an independent  LHASC/LPA/ID/DH/03/09, Healey to Dalton, 12 February 1946.  ‘Britain and World Socialism’, Tribune, 7 June 1946. 42  Steininger, Deutschland und die Sozialistische Internationale nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 58–9. 43  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1947/Denis Healey, ‘Notes on the minutes of the Zurich conference’, undated. 44  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 290. 45  IISH/SI/535/Belgium 1946–1954, ‘Digest on Belgian Proposals on the Reconstitution of an International’, December 1947. 40 41

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actor in foreign affairs, even asking for a seat at the United Nations (UN). The actions of the International needed to be distinct from those of the governments. Conversely, the British proposal matched the idea of Dalton and Gillies to make the Socialist International more attuned to the interests of stronger parties like Labour. As for the organisation, this meant empowering small committees dominated by a few bigger parties over the plenary assembly. The British proposal was approved, which led to the creation of the Committee of the International Socialist Conference (Comisco) in December 1947. By mid-1948, when against a burgeoning Cold War divide and following the creation of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) to administer Marshall Aid, the question of European integration became more widely discussed. Until this point the Labour Party had been holding off attempts to return to a centralised model of international socialist cooperation, which, it must be noted, had never existed in practice. What they did increasingly do, however, was back other forms of party cooperation and put in place financial resources to help other socialist groups to resist communism. An internal document makes its position clear: The International Socialist Conference, for obvious reasons can never hope to perform functions like those of the Comintern. The Socialist Parties differ among themselves in outlook, organisation, and situation; none would accept a centralised discipline; and above all, they would not have the funds of a powerful State to support their activity. But the Conference is at least a moral symbol through which the policy of its members can be influenced— its intervention in the Italian elections was effective.46

By 1951, when the Socialist International was officially reborn, this conception of international socialist cooperation had been embraced by all and formed the basis of the new organisation.47 When the Belgian socialist Victor Larock lobbied Morgan Phillips for the formal rebirth of the Socialist International, he stressed that the practice of respecting the autonomy of the national parties would not change: It is true that in contrast with the Second International, Comisco has refrained from any attempt to impose majority decisions upon the Socialists  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, ‘Memorandum on international socialist policy’, undated.  Costa, The Labour Party, 290–1; Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 308.

46 47

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in all countries. It has respected the authority of its members and its resolution are in no way meant to be categorical imperatives. […] Nothing is more alien to the Socialist movement than to pretend that it could—like the Comintern in 1920—impose an ‘iron discipline on military lines’ upon its adherents. […] The method adopted so far must indeed be retained. The system of conferences, of resolutions proposed and not imposed, must continue […].48

By the 1950s, then, the Labour Party was committed to internationalism, although in its own terms. The exact tenants of Labour’s vision for international cooperation were later expressed by Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan, Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary between 1956 and 1959. Commenting on the Socialist International’s resolution against nuclear tests, he explained: We are not committed to that resolution because resolutions have to be adopted by the Socialist parties of the member states before they become instruments of national policy. But nevertheless we did state our position and as the resolutions were drafted by the British delegates we are to some extent committed to them.49

Estrangement from Continental Socialists By their experience with socialist internationalism, British socialists learned to oppose a centralised form of international cooperation. However, they also learned to be wary of their continental counterparts, which an internal report identified as weak points of European socialism.50 In the late 1940s and the 1950s, British socialists developed their ties of sympathy, trust and even admiration with the socialists from countries that would eventually form the core of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)— the Austrian, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish social democrats.51 In 48  Steininger, Deutschland und die Sozialistische Internationale nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 392. 49  LPACR 1957, 180. 50  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, ‘Memorandum on international socialist policy’, undated. 51  Broad, Harold Wilson, 5; LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, Henry Earnshaw, ‘Report to the International sub-committee on visit to German SPD Congress in Berlin, 8 May 1948, and the Swedish Social Democratic Party Congress in Stockholm, 9–14 May 1948 by Mr. Harold Earnshaw’, undated; LHASC/LPA/ISC/1949, Henry Earnshaw, ‘Report on the Congress of the Norwegian Labour Party, Oslo, 17–18 Feb. 1949’, undated; LHASC/LPA/

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c­ ontrast, the Labour Party worried about the socialists from the countries that would form the EEC—France, Germany and Italy.52 At the time, British culture viewed the Germans with fear, saw the French as weak and unstable, and the Italians as backward and decadent, and all three unreliable when it came to reaching agreement on economic and defence issues.53 The Labour leadership’s experience with their socialist leaders largely confirmed such impressions. As Henderson left the political scene in the 1930s, he was succeeded by a new wave of British socialist figures who, unlike him, did not have the type of deep friendship with socialist leaders elsewhere in Europe formed during and after the First World War.54 Little surprise then that Gillies grew particularly suspicious of German social democrats who had acted as appeasers in 1933 for nationalist reasons.55 Already in 1941 he offered a scathing survey of continental socialism: there was little socialist activity in occupied Europe; Danish and French socialists cooperated with the occupation forces; and socialist exiles in London were demoralised and represented nobody but themselves.56 Socialists from Austria, Italy and Germany in particular felt they were treated as ‘socialists of lesser breed.’57 Moreover, according to Gillies these were parties without a rank and file; still worse, their former rank and file were now the troops of the Wehrmacht.58 In the 1930s, Dalton, for his part, considered only the socialists from the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Czechoslovakia to be ‘real’ socialist parties. As clear was his anti-Germanism, on full display in the proposal for a post-war settlement: ‘The trouble is, not that good Germans don’t exist, but that they are singularly ineffective in restraining the bad Germans.’59 ISC/1950, H. Douglass, ‘Report on Austrian socialist party congress, Graz, 2nd November, 1950’, undated. 52  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, ‘Memorandum on international socialist policy’, undated. 53  N. Piers Ludlow, ‘Us or them? The Meanings of “Europe” in British Political Discourse’, in Mikael Malmborg and Bo Strath (eds.) The Meaning of Europe (London: Berg, 2002), 101–24, here 108–15. 54  Collette, The International Faith, 76–82. 55  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1941, William Gillies, ‘German Social Democracy – Notes on its Foreign Policy in World War’, October 1941; William Gillies, ‘On the Eve of the Third Reich – The German Social Democratic Party’, undated. 56  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1941, William Gillies, ‘The International’, undated. 57  LHASC/LPA/LSI/26/6/4, Karl Czernetz and Oscar Pollak to Camille Huysmans, 19 April 1942. 58  LHASC/LPA/LSI/26/2/11, William Gillies to Camille Huysman, 1 April 1942. 59  Labour Party, The International Post-War Settlement (London: Labour Party, 1944).

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After 1945, Healey was pessimistic about the SPD since its leaders were thought mediocre and the party did not have strong links with trade unions. The Party was not strong enough to impose its economic policy: ‘Thus the SPD, despite its past electoral successes, faces a decline as disastrous as that of the SFIO.’60 When disagreement emerged about foreign policies concerning Germany (for instance, the internationalisation of the Ruhr and the fate of the Saarland), the British resorted to blaming it on the nationalism and obstinacy of the SPD.61 Democratic socialism in Italy would prove to be even more disastrous and Labour became entangled in its turmoil in the late 1940s.62 Labour opinion of the French was still worse. Before the fall of France in 1940, the Labour Party had tried to make French socialists a so-called privileged partner, mirroring the unity of French and British people in the wartime struggle.63 In 1948, they tried to rekindle a special relationship in order to deal together with questions of common interest such as the internationalisation of the Ruhr.64 However, the weakness of French socialism and the instability of the Fourth Republic made the SFIO something of an unreliable partner. According to Labour figures, it was necessary for French socialists to be in government so as to keep communists and Gaullists out. But, allied with parties supporting an opposite economic philosophy, the SFIO proved unable to enact the radical solutions the French economy needed.65 British Labourites came to identify the French socialists as their ‘other,’ whose values were the reversal of their own: factionalism and disunity, with a prevalence for ideological formulas and radical rhetoric matched by low compromises to stay in power and an organisation of middle-class intellectuals instead of workers.66 Not all those judgements were unfair, but they showed a lack of knowledge of  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, ‘Memorandum on international socialist policy’, undated.  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1950, Denis Healey, ‘Visit to Germany  – Report by Secretary’, March 1950 and Percy Knight, ‘Report on the German Social Democratic Party Conference, Hamburg 20–26 May, 1950’, June 1950. 62  Costa, The Labour Party, 175–205. 63  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1940, ‘Minutes of the International Sub-Committee’, 7 March 1940, Appendix, ‘Meeting of the British Labour Party and the French Socialist Party (SFIO), Paris, February 22, 1940’. 64  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, ‘Note on a conference between Mr. Morgan Phillips and Monsieur Salomon Grumbach on Friday, 9 January 1948’, undated. 65  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, ‘Memorandum on international socialist policy’, undated. 66  Harold Laski, ‘Problems of the French Socialist Party’, Forward, 17 July 1948. 60 61

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foreign cultures67 and a lack of empathy for a political party operating in a system characterised by proportional representation and facing a strong domestic communist party.68 In 1948, the Norwegian Haakon Lie gave voice to what British and Scandinavians suspected: that the French wanted deeper forms of European integration and socialist cooperation because they were unable to win their national battles by themselves.69 The French themselves confirmed this at a conference of socialist experts in March 1949. Here, British socialists proposed international planning based on voluntary government cooperation, while the French and Belgian wanted a supranational authority ‘able to carry out the socialist measures which were not acceptable to their national Governments.’70 As Healey noticed, the issue of the renunciation of sovereignty divided the socialists between those who had much to lose—British and Scandinavian—and those who had little.71 Bevan used the SFIO as a warning of what the Labour Party would become if it were ever to ‘lose its soul.’72 While Bevan conceded that, theoretically, national sovereignty ‘is a phrase which history is emptying of meaning’ and that the nation state was insufficient to build socialism, he believed that the EEC—or the Common Market, as the British referred to it—was ‘the result of political malaise following upon the failure of Socialists to use the sovereign power of their parliaments to plan their economic life.’73 Therefore, the problem of pooling sovereignty was not abstract; it was about pooling sovereignty with these people.74 In 1962, 67  Barbara Castle believed that Danton’s slogan ‘la patrie en danger’ was an invention of Leon Blum! 68   LHASC/LPA/ISC/1951, Barbara Castle, ‘Report on the French Socialist Party Congress, Paris, 11–14 May 1951’, undated. 69  Klaus Misgeld, Sozialdemokratie und Aussenpolitik in Schweden. Sozialistische Internationale, Europapolitik und die Deutschlandfrage 1945–1955 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1984), 199. 70  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1948, Wilfred Fienburgh, ‘Report on the socialist conference of economic experts on international control of European basic industries, Bennekom, Holland, March 14–20, 1949’, undated. 71  Denis Healey, ‘Power politics and the Labour Party’, in Denis Healey (ed.), When Shrimps Learn to Whistle: Signposts for the Nineties (London: Michael Joseph, 1990), 3–18, here 9. 72  Ben Pimlott, The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton: 1918–40 and 1945–60 (London: Cape, 1986), diary entry for 23 January 1952. 73  Broad, Labour’s European Dilemma, 33. 74  Ettore Costa, ‘Labour’s Euroscepticism and the Socialist International (1948–1952)’, in Guido Levi, Daniela Preda (eds.), Euroscepticism, Resistance and Opposition to the European Community/European Union (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2018), 363–74.

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Labour’s former leader, Clement Attlee, repeated that any form of ­association with Germany, France and Italy, and not least within a supranational bloc like the EEC, was dangerous since these were countries which he thought lacked a tradition of parliamentary democracy.75 The argument that economic integration was an escape from economic failure and the refusal to adopt planning found its place in the 1962 speech by Attlee’s successor, Hugh Gaitskell, and the 1964 general election manifesto penned by Gaitskell’s own successor, Harold Wilson.76

From Old Arguments to New Debates In 1948, confrontation with the communists and the implementation of the Marshall Plan opened many opportunities for international cooperation between European states and socialist parties. The ECSC—with its supranational structure—was just one possible form European integration could take. The Labour government and the Labour Party took a leading role in espousing its views in this regard. As one pamphlet noted, ‘The ideal of European unity can only be saved from corruption by reactionary politicians if the Socialists place themselves at the head of the movement for its realisation.’77 Labour proposed its vision of voluntary coordination between independent entities. This was the key difference between socialists: preserving sovereignty—of party and state—was imperative for any form of international cooperation embraced by the British and the Scandinavians. Federalists on the continent, including socialists, by contrast embraced the idea of European integration based on pooling sovereignty and creating supranational institutions.78 Both visions were about European cooperation, but they were alternative. In the first half of 1948, European socialists organised two conferences to discuss the implementation of the Marshall Plan, in Selsdon Park, London and Paris respectively.79 At the first conference, the Labour Party rejected supranationalism; at the second, French and Belgian socialists managed to extract a vague commitment to federalism and transfer of  Hansard, House of Lords Debates, vol. 244 c. 427, 8 November 1962.  Hugh Gaitskell, ‘The Common Market’, in Martin Holmes (ed.), The Eurosceptical Reader (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 19; Iain Dale (ed.), Labour Party General Election Manifestos 1900–1997 (London: Routledge), 106–7. 77  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 293. 78  Costa, The Labour Party, 148, 265; Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 311–2. 79  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 321–2. 75 76

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national sovereignty.80 The final resolution argued that the permanent organisation managing the Marshall Plan would become ‘the nucleus of a federal power to which would accrue that part of national sovereignty voluntarily waived by the States composing it.’81 Since the House of Commons and Labour’s Annual Conference later voted against renouncing sovereignty, the Labour Party had to retreat from this promise and keep expectations low, as revealed by the title of the pamphlet they put out in September, Feet on the Ground. In June 1950 the Labour Party published an uncompromising condemnation of federalism with the pamphlet European Unity, and the international socialists held a special conference to discuss the Schuman Plan. The Labour Party failed to convince the socialist movement to oppose the proposal and an agreement about supranationalism could not be found.82 This disagreement on federalism was to become the central division inside the socialist movement in the decades to come. The arguments that would form the core of Labour’s Euroscepticism were first drafted by Labour leaders in their interactions with the international socialist community, as an attempt to cool the ‘Euroenthusiasm’ of continental socialists. Such opinions were variations of those already used in the debate over socialist cooperation. First, the Labour Party repeated that it was opposed to federalism, not European integration per se. They rejected accusations of insularity since they had helped set up the defence-­ centric Brussels Treaty and the OEEC—both successful examples of European cooperation.83 Likewise, Morgan Phillips denied being opposed in principle to the Socialist International, since the Labour Party had kept internationalism alive during the war and after.84 As for socialist internationalism and European integration, Labourites warned of the need to keep expectations low so as to avoid disappointment.85 For them, the true 80  Steininger, Deutschland und die Sozialistische Internationale nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 141. Also Kevin Featherstone, Socialist Parties and European Integration: A Comparative History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 42–7. 81  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 323. 82  Steininger, Deutschland und die Sozialistische Internationale nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 155–9; Richard T. Griffiths, ‘European Utopia or Capitalist Trap? The Socialist International and the Question of Europe’, in Griffiths, Socialist Parties and the Question of Europe, 9–24, here 14–5. 83  Labour Party, Feet on the Ground, 3–5; Labour Party, European Unity, 3. 84  IISH/SI/235, Stenogramme, 8 June 1947. 85  John Price, The International Labour Movement (London: Oxford University Press, 1945), 12. LHASC/LPA/ISC/1950, ‘Paper transmitted to Monsieur Guy Mollet, Rapporteur of the General Affairs Committee of the Consultative assembly’, undated.

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enemy of international cooperation were the doctrinaires concerned with idealistic solutions, by which they clearly meant the French.86 Just like traditional socialist internationalism, the British argued that federalism was an old-fashioned solution unfit for modern times: But the type of economic co-operation which is possible today can create a vested interest in union fully as binding as a federal government, without any constitutional changes in the countries concerned. Moreover in such functional co-operation the countries can choose those issues in which their common interest is agreed.87

Federalism raised doctrinal and constitutional problems that blocked functional cooperation on concrete issues. According to one paper drafted by Labour headquarters, federalism ‘at this stage of European history, is a dangerous doctrine and a false scent’; Western Europe’s problems were instead best solved ‘on the plane of concrete realities, and not of abstract theories.’88 Appeals to pragmatism and rapid actions were also typical of Labour’s discourse over socialist internationalism. The same arguments were used for the internal organisation. In the Socialist International, the British opposed the power of the plenary assembly, arguing that cooperation would emerge from negotiations between the representatives of the independent parties. They also promoted conferences of experts who could discuss questions from a technical point of view without political complications.89 Likewise, the British rejected a European parliament, which would have been less effective than a committee of cabinet ministers and national experts.90 The argument was the same for decision-making: the LSI was supposed to be a centralised institution able to give orders to the national branches, while the Labour Party supported a form of cooperation where the sovereign parties took decisions by unanimous consensus. In the OEEC, they supported

 Labour Party, Feet on the Ground, 22.  Ibid., 21. 88  LHASC/LPA/ISC/1950, ‘Paper transmitted to Monsieur Guy Mollet, Rapporteur of the General Affairs Committee of the Consultative assembly’, undated. 89  IISH/SI/59, Socialist International Circular no. 76/51, 14 June 1951. 90  Labour Party, Feet on the Ground, 20. 86 87

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unanimity as a practice since neither national governments nor parties would accept a damaging decision.91 The continuity was not just in Labour’s arguments, but Labour’s people. Dalton played a key role in opposing centralised socialist internationalism in the 1930s and federalism in the 1940s. When he spoke against federalism at the Annual Conference in 1948, he, perhaps inadvertently, set Labour policy for decades to come. But he also employed well-worn arguments. In particular, he celebrated the creation of the OEEC as a practical achievement in international cooperation by the British government: ‘I am wholly for the practical British functional approach rather than for any theoretical federalism.’92 Pooling sovereignty into common assemblies—what Dalton called ‘conclaves of chatter-boxes’—was by comparison dangerous and unpredictable; it was much better to have representatives of sovereign governments discuss practical issues. The British labour movement had fought for decades for its social rights and full employment, so Dalton believed; thus it was also imperative to avoid giving reactionaries in Western Europe ‘the power to decree that we in Britain shall go back to the inter-war years of trade depression and all the rest of it.’93 The success of socialism in Europe was dependent on the success of individual parties in individual nations. Another reason for the enduring nature of these arguments was that they became entangled with the ascent of the new generation of leaders who would go on to control the Party in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s—a generation Dalton was in part responsible for fostering.94 While the Attlee government made the strategic decisions to reject the early attempts to forge a supranational grouping centred around France and Germany, the arguments serving as socialist rationale were drafted by a small group of younger party figures. Healey was responsible for writing Feet on the Ground and European Unity in coordination with the Foreign Office, Hugh Gaitskell and Douglas Jay.95 Healey also shaped Labour’s strategy at the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. From his experiences, Healey

 Ibid., 13.  LPACR 1948, 177. 93  Ibid., 179. 94  Radhika Desai, Intellectuals and Socialism: ‘Social Democrats’ and the British Labour Party (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1994), 54–60. 95  Costa, The Labour Party, Denis Healey and the International Socialist Movement, 56, 70, 276. 91 92

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developed a dismissive attitude towards federalism, seeing it as a deformation of the Cartesian mind of unpragmatic continentals.96 The Labour Party did not miss the boat in the 1950s; it actually had policies about European cooperation and approved some initiatives, such as the free trade area (FTA) debated between 1956 and 1958.97 However, Labour leaders, including those three, preferred a vision of European cooperation that did not include supranational solutions. Gaitskell, when leader, played a balancing act in response to Macmillan’s 1961 bid to join the EEC, but his position was consistent on one point: while he supported political and economic cooperation, his main objection was the perceived threat that European supranational integration would bring about a political federation.98

Conclusions It is a mistake to believe that the Labour Party ruled out international cooperation between nation states and between socialist parties; rather, its actions offered multiple proof that there existed a commitment to doing exactly that. However, its vision of cooperation was consistently based on the preservation of sovereignty and rejection of supranationalism. The Schuman Plan is exemplary. The SPD’s leader, Kurt Schumacher, rejected it with strong rhetoric, but the Labour Party held at worst a benevolent indifference.99 The key difference was that, even in their opposition, the SPD explicitly accepted the principle of supranationalism and a limitation of national sovereignty. Thus, moving from opposition to embracing the European supranational institutions like the ECSC and later the EEC was much less radical for the SPD than Labour. Socialisation did not just fail to change Labour’s preferences, it entrenched them. This went against the expectations of continental socialists such as Vincent Auriol, Mollet and the leading Dutch socialist Marinus Van der goes van Naters. They believed that while British socialist were sceptical of the sentimental ideals of federalism, the Labour leaders would ultimately be persuaded to support European supranational integration  Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (London: Penguin, 1990), 93–4.  Matthew Broad, ‘Ignoring Europe? Reassessing the British Labour Party’s Policy towards European Integration, 1951–60’, Journal of European Integration History 24, no. 1 (2018): 95–114, here 107. 98  Broad, Harold Wilson, 55–7. Jay took an uncompromising anti-European attitude and Healey remained sceptical towards the EEC throughout the 1960s. 99  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 336–7. 96 97

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because its tangible results would appeal to their pragmatic character.100 This prediction has, of course, yet to come to pass: despite delivering undeniable benefits, European integration in the form of the EEC/EU has failed to engender true affection among Labour leaders and voters. The asymmetry of enthusiasm on the two sides was evident during the Brexit referendum. Socialisation also had an antisocial effect on some continental socialists, who, as Attlee recognised, ‘are often puzzled by the attitudes of British Labour representatives.’101 While pre-1939 frustration with British socialists was forgotten during the Second World War, the latter 1940s and 1950s gave new cause for disappointment. Van der Goes van Naters took from his interactions with British socialists that they were nationalist.102 Mollet was deeply frustrated with the Labour Party, firm in his belief that an EEC without Britain was highly problematic.103 Interactions with British socialists also seemingly radicalised French socialist André Philip. As Talbot Imlay has remarked, ‘Having concluded that Labour would never honestly cooperate on European unity, Philip urged European socialists to move forward without the British.’104 Philip had the merit of recognising that Labour’s policy on European integration was not just a case of obstinacy or misunderstanding to be overcome with practice, but a coherent position with a logic behind it. Having understood as much, he even wrote a pamphlet designed to undermine this reasoning through a socialist critique of all the myths the Labour Party held dear: full employment, nationalisation, the Commonwealth, British parliamentary sovereignty. Philip attacked Labour’s argument that an international organisation had to be based on the voluntary, unanimous cooperation of sovereign nations: ‘The veto itself is a destructive element. All institutions that have it are doomed to die by it.’105 Twenty years before, support for the veto

100  Marinus van der Goes van Naters, ‘European Unity, Report of the Comisco study group on European Unity’, Comisco Information Service, 17 March 1951; Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 274. 101  Broad, Labour’s European Dilemma, 203. 102  Marinus Van Der Goes van Naters, Met en tegen de tijd (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1980), 195–208. 103  Imlay, The Practice of Socialist Internationalism, 301. 104  Ibid., 329. 105  André Philip, Le Socialisme et l’Unité Européenne, Réponse à l’Exécutif du Labour Party (Paris: Mouvement Socialiste pour les États-Unis d’Europe, 1950), 13.

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had been the position of the opponents of the League of Nations. Evoking the spectre of Labour’s embarrassing past, Philip said: Reading Labour’s manifesto [the 1950 pamphlet European Unity], it looks like nothing has changed in the world after M. Ramsay Mac Donald [sic] and it is depressing to see the same isolationist and nationalist assertions which bear a huge responsibility for the catastrophe which we have lived.106

As Philip noticed, Labour’s conception of national sovereignty in international affairs and party sovereignty in socialist internationalism were two sides of the same coin. The main difference, as facts showed, was that socialist internationalism could not go forward without the British and the Scandinavians: supranational European integration could and did. On a methodological note, all this shows that socialisation is an important analytical tool, it is not enough to assess mere causal links between actors operating within a transnational network. Socialisation is open to different outcomes which cannot be deduced but only empirically assessed. The different visions of international cooperation—whether in socialist internationalism or European integration—of the Labour Party on the one hand, and most continental socialists on the other, were not marginal. Nor were such differences easily neutralised by transnational socialisation. Different visions were born out of different ideas about the world and different past experience, which must still be taken seriously by scholars.

106

 Ibid., 12.

CHAPTER 7

Less than Membership but More than Association: Establishing the European Economic Area, 1989–1993 Juhana Aunesluoma

The late 1980s and early 1990s are generally understood as a pivotal moment in the history of European integration. While the following decades would give rise to a series of basic treaty revisions to refine the decision-making and power-sharing arrangements of the European Union (EU), it was in this earlier period that the still European Community (EC) took the decisive turn towards a more deeply integrated and geographically expanding bloc. The tremendous speed in which economic integration had progressed over previous decades, and the further commercial benefits that might be accrued from creating still wider and deeper markets, provided the necessary momentum for the Community to agree the Single European Act (SEA) in 1986. Its aim was to create an integrated single market in goods, services, financial capital and labour by 1992. Popularised as the EC’s four freedoms, this would require the removal of

J. Aunesluoma (*) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_7

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a large variety of physical, technical and fiscal barriers to cross-border trade and economic activity.1 As the so-called Project 1992 got underway, debates over adding to this already ambitious agenda began in earnest. The outcome was a meeting of the European Council in Maastricht in December 1991, where member states agreed not only to establish a single currency and work towards the full realisation of an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) but also to extend and strengthen their cooperation in both foreign and security policy and home and justice affairs, in what by 1993 would officially come to be known as the EU. And with it came the additional opportunity for the Community to open its doors to new members. Three Cold War neutrals—Austria, Sweden and Finland— would consequently join in 1995, followed by further waves of enlargement in 2004, 2007 and 2013.2 At first sight, this path from the 1980s to the 2000s seems straightforward. This was seemingly a period that saw a dramatic rise in the comparative political and economic weight of the EC/EU.  Supported by predominantly pro-integration, even enthusiastic, elites and electorates, the EC/EU and the ideas that underpinned it emerged as one of the champions of the great systemic and ideological struggles of the twentieth century. Freed from the geopolitical constraints of the Cold War international system and riding the tide of liberalisation and growing flows of trade and capital, international cooperation in Europe came to be dominated by the ‘European project’, a process of regional integration that had started in the 1950s in continental Western Europe but now seemed to be spreading throughout the continent. Understood as institutionalised, in part intergovernmental and in part supranational governance of economic and political interdependence among sovereign nation states, such was its appeal that ‘integration’ in common parlance became 1  The origins of the SEA and its implementation are covered in Wilfried Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 271–89. 2   Ibid., 310–22; Johnny Laursen, ‘The Enlargement of the European Community, 1950–95’, in Wilfried Loth (ed.), Experiencing Europe: 50 years of European Construction 1957–2007 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009), 269–304; Antonie Marès, ‘Central Europe in the “Fifth” Enlargement of the European Union’, in Loth, Experiencing Europe, 326–45; Michael Gehler, ‘A Newcomer Experienced in European Integration: Austria’, in Wolfram Kaiser and Jürgen Elvert (eds.), European Union Enlargement. A Comparative History (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 131–49; Hanna Ojanen, ‘If in “Europe”, then in its “core”?’ Finland’, in ibid., 150–69; Maria Gussarsson, ‘Combining Dependence with Distance: Sweden’, in ibid., 170–88.

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synonymous with ‘Europe’ and, most explicitly, ‘the EU’. When it came to economic and political cooperation and its institutionalisation, at the turn of the millennium, the EU looked like the only game in town. A closer look of course tells a more complicated story. Later experiences have shown that developments in the EU fell short of the kind of a fundamental transition of the state system, collective identities and societal norms towards a post-national Europe that many had hoped. The single market, for example, was arguably created without due concern to the social policy challenges and socio-economic displacement that the implementation of freedom of movement would cause in the lives of ordinary citizens. Nor is it unreasonable to suggest that the EMU was built on compromises that hamstrung its economic policy coordination capacity and made it illequipped to face the consequences of the global financial crisis of 2008. The EU’s enlargement in the 2000s was likewise accompanied with overly optimistic expectations of the ability of the newcomers to complete their post-socialist or post-conflict transitions and catch up with the prosperous, established liberal democracies of the West. Ambitions to develop the EU into a new kind of global actor, resting upon ‘normative power’ and a record of institutional successes and values as the foundation of its international influence, were contrasted with the weakness of its collective agency in the global military sphere and geopolitical rivalries of the 2010s. As the gap between earlier, more optimistic expectations and the realities of the subsequent decades has widened, scholars have become increasingly interested in the foundations of the continent’s post-Cold War order. Developments from the 1980s to the new millennium, when the hegemonic ideas and institutional practices of post-Cold War European politics and societal conditions took their form, have been studied from a variety of perspectives.3 In the field of security policy, a vigorous debate has emerged on the consequences of the decision to expand NATO to include ex-Warsaw Pact countries and modernize it as the primary vehicle of transatlantic security cooperation.4 3  Recent developments in the EU have been popularized in Luuk van Middelaar, The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2013) and in Luuk van Middelaar, Alarums & Excursions: Improvising Politics on the European Stage (Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing, 2019). A perspective stressing the significance of neoliberal ideas in the post-Cold War transition of European states is found in Philipp Ther, Europe Since 1989: A History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016). 4  Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, ‘Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the US Offer to Limit NATO Expansion’, International Security 40, no. 4 (2016): 7–44; Mary Elise

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One of the major issues that have aroused scholarly interest is the extent to which there existed alternatives to the ways in which the strategic outlook of EU members changed and its economic and political integration proceeded after the Cold War. Without engaging in counterfactual history writing, scholars have been keen to explore and reconstruct actual decision-­ making processes and identify possible alternative plans and competing designs for known historical outcomes. A full understanding of historical developments requires not only the explanation of how and why certain things happened but also why other developments did not. We cannot confine ourselves to the study of only known outcomes; to paraphrase historian A.J.P. Taylor, we also need to look into historical turning points and when history failed to turn.5 In this regard, particular attention has been given to the immediate aftermath of the political upheavals of 1989.6 A question that spurred competing plans and visions in the EC was how to engage and include Cold War neutrals in the building of the EU after 1989. A relatively well-­ studied case is the French President Francois Mitterrand’s plan for a European confederation consisting of a consolidated Western European core and a looser pan-European structure stretching to the  East.7 As it happened, Mitterrand’s plans were abandoned in 1991, but in the first years of the 1990s various alternatives were devised both in capitals like Paris and Bonn but also the European Commission, as to how to include former Eastern bloc countries into the EU project.8 Sarotte, ‘A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow about NATO Expansion’, Foreign Affairs 93, no. 5 (2014): 142–49; Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘Not One Inch Eastward? Bush, Baker, Kohl, Genscher, Gorbachev, and the Origin of Russian Resentment toward NATO Enlargement in February 1990’, Diplomatic History 34, no. 1 (2010): 119–40; Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘How to Enlarge NATO: The Debate inside the Clinton Administration, 1993–95’, International Security 44, no. 1 (2019): 7–41; Mark Kramer, ‘The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia’, Washington Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2009): 39–61. 5  In 1848 ‘German history reached its turning-point and failed to turn’, A.J.P.  Taylor wrote in The Course of German History: A Survey of the Development of German History since 1815 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1945), 69. 6  Mary Elise Sarotte, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009); Frédéric Bozo, Mitterrand, the End of the Cold War, and German Unification (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009). 7  Frédéric Bozo, ‘The Failure of a Grand Design: Mitterrand’s European Confederation, 1989–1991’, Contemporary European History 17, no. 3 (2008): 391–412. 8  In addition to German designs for a quick but territorially limited enlargement (Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary), the Commissioner for Enlargement, Frans Andriessen (1989–1993), put forward his own suggestion (the Andriessen Plan) and the French Prime

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The most pressing question for policymakers, however, was how to accommodate the deepening of the EC/EU with its widening. Was it possible to expand the old Community without diluting its purpose to create an ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’? Many of these plans took their cue from European Commission President Jacques Delors’ musings of a Europe of ‘concentric circles’. According to Delors, European nations would find their place in the integration process either at the core, participating in the deepest levels of supranational integration, or the outer rings, with various degree of detachment and more selective participation in the EU project. Similar ideas were put forward by a team of advisors around West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the summer of 1989.9 Even after the Maastricht summit and the decision to open membership to countries fulfilling the necessary criteria, the idea of a ‘core Europe’ persisted. This was seen in the idea outlined in 1994 by German centre-right politicians Wolfgang Schäuble and Karl Lamers for a ‘Kerneuropa’.10 In that same year two advisors to Kohl, Michael Meters and Norbert J. Prill, called for a ‘Europe of Olympic rings’ rather than one of concentric circles.11 And British Prime Minister John Major was also well known to be an advocate of a rapidly enlarging but highly differentiated union. What they all had in mind was dubbed ‘differentiated integration’ and came to be analysed in the 1990s in a surge of studies by political scientists and integration theorists.12 The principles of ‘variable geometry’ and Minister Édouard Balladur his own plan in 1993 (the Balladur Plan). Michael Gehler, ‘Revolutionäre Ereignisse und geoökonomisch-strategische Ergebnisse. Die EU-und NATO- “Osterweiterungen” 1989–2015 im Vergleich’, ZEI Discussion Papers no. 239 (2019), 13–16; Marcin Zaborowski, ‘Germany and EU Enlargement: From Rapprochement to “Reaproachment?”’, in Helene Sjursen (ed.), Enlargement in Perspective (Oslo: Arena, 2005): 41–68; Kristina Spohr, ‘Precluded of Precedent-Setting? The NATO Enlargement Question in the Triangular Bonn-Washington-Moscow Diplomacy of 1990/1991 and Beyond’, Journal of Cold War Studies 14, no. 4 (2012): 4–54. 9  Michael Mertes and Norbert J. Prill, ‘Der verhängnisvolle Irrtum eines Entweder-Oder. Eine Vision für Europa’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 19 July 1989. 10  Karl Lamers and Wolfgang Schäuble, ‘Überlegungen zur europäischen Politik’, CDU/CSU policy brief, 1 September 1994, available at https://web.archive.org/web/20160318173446, https://www.cducsu.de/upload/schaeublelamers94.pdf (accessed 1 October 2019). 11   ‘Es wächst zusammen, was zusammengehören will. “Maastricht Zwei” muss die Europäische Union flexibel Machen’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 December 1994. 12  According to Alexander Stubb, the discussion of differentiated integration started with the Tindemans Report in 1976, but then received scant attention until the CDU/CSU report by Lamers and Schäuble in 1994. Alexander Stubb, ‘A Categorization of Differentiated

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‘multispeed Europe’, as two different forms of differentiation, were even enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 and the Treaty of Nice in 2001.13 Though the general premise was that the overall direction should remain geared towards gradual deepening, this did not require all EU nations to adopt wholly symmetrical positions or participate in the deepest forms of integration either at the outset or with permanent opt-outs. This principle has been followed through in a number of ways in today’s EU. Despite the prevalence of ideas such as these during the post-Cold War transition, though, surprisingly little historical research has been conducted on them. This chapter therefore aims to contribute to the limited body of historical, archive-based works that exist on the question of differentiated integration in the 1980s and 1990s. In line with the broader objectives of this volume, which seeks to highlight other forms of integration, it asks more specifically the extent to which ideas of multi-speed European unity were developed into actual plans, attempted or implemented at the turn of the 1990s. One of the principal forms of differentiated integration today is the European Economic Area (EEA), which consists of the EU and three European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members: Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Following negotiations in 1989–93, the EEA came into force in 1994. The agreement was devised to provide EFTA countries— with the exception of Switzerland, which narrowly rejected the agreement in a referendum in December 1992—with access to the European single market and its four freedoms. Significantly, it left these countries outside a number of supranational policy fields such as the EU’s customs union and the common agricultural and fisheries policies. With its own institutional structures, the EEA countries also stood outside the formal institutions and decision-making processes of the EU.  As a Finnish official, Paavo Integration’, Journal of Common Market Studies 34, no. 2 (1996): 283–95. Scholarly interest in differentiated integration weakened in the 2000s, but re-emerged in the 2010s as its policy relevance increased. See for instance Kenneth Dyson and Angelos Sepos, Which Europe? The Politics of Differentiated Integration (Basingstoke and New  York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Dirk Leuffen, Berthold Rittberger and Frank Schimmelfennig, Differentiated Integration: Explaining Variation in the European Union (Basingstoke and New  York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Benjamin Leruth and Christopher Lord, ‘Differentiated Integration in the European Union: A Concept, a Process, a System or a Theory?’, Journal of European Public Policy 22, no. 6 (2015): 754–63. 13  Alexander Stubb, Negotiating Flexibility in the European Union: Amsterdam, Nice and Beyond (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

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Kaarlehto, described the suggested arrangement already in 1989, it meant something ‘less than membership and more than association’.14 This is for good reason. For while they did not assume all the rights and responsibilities of EU members, the EFTA countries were nonetheless bound to its legal and institutional order in return for access to its single market. A two-pillar system of supervision and judicial control was established, consisting of an EFTA Surveillance Authority and an EFTA Court exercising judicial control of the agreement in the EFTA countries, mirroring the roles of the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). Despite the complexity of its institutional and legal design, the EEA has slowly become a routine feature of the European institutional landscape. Since Sweden, Austria and Finland—all former EFTA members—joined the EU, it has provided Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with continuous access to the EU’s market. Given the limitations it places on the internal sovereignty of the EFTA countries in single market-related legislation and the peculiarities of its legal oversight arrangements, the EEA’s longevity in itself has become a topic for scholarly interest and has resulted in several studies.15 Long a relatively little known aspect of European integration, the EEA also became a topic of lively discussion after the referendum in the United Kingdom to leave the EU in 2016. After the vote, various alternatives, including the so-called Norway model—which in reality referred to accessing the EU market via the EEA—were explored for the United Kingdom’s future relationship with Brussels.16

14  Cited in Mauno Koivisto, Witness to History: The Memoirs of Mauno Koivisto, President of Finland 1982–1994 (London: Hurst & Company, 1997), 224. 15  Halvard Haukeland Fredriksen, ‘Bridging the Widening Gap between the EU Treaties and the Agreement on the European Economic Area’, European Law Journal 18, no. 6 (2012): 868–86; Halvard Haukeland Fredriksen and Christian N.K. Franklin, ‘Of Pragmatism and Principles: The EEA Agreement 20 Years On’, Common Market Law Review 52, no. 3 (2015): 629–84; Tom O.  Johnsen and Pernille Rieker, ‘The EEA and Norway Grants: A Source of Soft Power?’, Journal of European Integration 37, no. 4 (2015): 417–32. In 2012 the Norwegian government published an exhaustive study of the functioning of the EEA treaty. For more see Norges Offentliga Utredningar, Utenfor og innenfor. Norges avtaler med EU (Oslo: NOU, 2012). An earlier exercise with a similar task was carried out by Dag Harald Claes and Bent Sofus Tranøy, Utenfor, annerledes og suveren? Norge under EØS-avtalen (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 1999). 16  John Erik Fossum and Hans Petter Graver, Squaring the Circle of Brexit: Could the Norway Model Work? (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2018).

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The institutional setup, the legal order and the functioning of the EEA have all been extensively covered in existing research.17 Comparatively less work has been done on the actual negotiation process itself, however.18 This chapter charts the course of the EEA negotiations from the beginning of the process in 1989 until 1994, when the EEA came to force. It utilises materials stored in EFTA’s own archives, interviews and declassified national archives where these have been made accessible.19 Taking advantage of the possibility to reconstruct the negotiation process with access to primary documentation on the EFTA side, the chapter looks at 17   Cédric Dupont, ‘The Failure of the Nest-Best Solution: EC–EFTA Institutional Relationships and the European Economic Area’, in Vinod K. Aggarwal (ed.), Institutional Designs for a Complex World: Bargaining, Linkages and Nesting (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1998): 124–60; Sieglinde Gstöhl, ‘The Nordic Countries and the European Economic Area (EEA)’, in Lee Miles (ed.), The European Union and the Nordic Countries (London: Routledge, 1996), 47–62; Sven Norberg, ‘The Agreement on a European Economic Area’, Common Market Law Review 29, no. 6 (1992): 1171–98; Leif Sevón, ‘The EEA Judicial System and the Supreme Courts of the EFTA States’, European Journal of International Law3, no. 2 (1992): 329–40; Armando Toledano Laredo, ‘The EEA Agreement: An Overall View’, Common Market Law Review 29, no. 6 (1992): 1199–1213: Helen Wallace (ed.), The Wider Western Europe: Reshaping the EC/EFTA Relationship (London: RIIA, 1991). 18  Eyewitnesses and contemporary actors have written a good part of the existing history. For instance Eric Hayes, a European Commission official involved in the EEA negotiations, has covered his experiences in ‘From Cold War to Common Currency. A Personal Perspective on Finland and the EU’, Finnish Foreign Policy Papers 1 (2011): 19–22. Ulf Dinkelspiel, Sweden’s main negotiator, has covered the negotiations in his memoirs Den motvillige europén. Sveriges väg till Europa (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2009). Paal J. Frisvold, from the Norwegian negotiating team, provides a brief account of the origins of EEA in Towards Europe: The Story of Reluctant Norway (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2018), 93–98. The Finnish perspective has been summarised by Päivi Luostarinen and Pertti Salolainen, who led the Finnish negotiation team, in ‘Euroopan talousalue: kylmän sodan jaloista aidoksi eurooppalaiseksi toimijaksi’, in Alexander Stubb (ed.), Marginaalista ytimeen. Suomi Euroopan unionissa 1989–2003 (Helsinki: Tammi, 2006), 16–32. This author has covered the negotiations in the context of Finnish integration policy in Juhana Aunesluoma, Vapaakaupan tiellä. Suomen kauppa- ja integraatiopolitiikka maailmansodista EU-aikaan (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia, 2011), 410–32. 19  The author has had access to previously classified documents in EFTA archives in Geneva and in foreign ministry archives and presidential papers in Finland, where a 25-year rule is applied to classified government papers. At the time of writing, archival materials from the EC on the EEA have not yet been made available. An interview with Eric Hayes, a Commission official responsible for EFTA affairs at the time, has however provided welcome information. Future researchers will undoubtedly find EC documentation on the origins of the EEA informative.

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the critical junctures of the negotiations and their course. What is of interest are the positions of the various actors and the linkages of the EEA negotiations with the preparations of the EU’s 1995 enlargement. Placing it within a broader frame of the institutional development of European integration at the time, it explores the EEA’s origins and founding principles, and analyses how contemporary policymakers defined and saw its long-term aims as either a bridge or an alternative to a geographically expanded EU. Besides showing how the EEA eventually took the shape it did, the chapter also looks at the EEA’s structural weaknesses and how ultimately a realisation of its institutional inadequacy paved the way for EU enlargement. The creation of the EEA exemplified how difficult it was to give coherent institutional or legal form to any ideas of a Europe of concentric or Olympic circles. Not surprisingly, the EEA has not been adopted as a model for other non-members to arrange their access to the EU’s single market. And despite some attention being given during Britain’s Brexit debate, the EEA has not emerged as an attractive or a realistic alternative to free trade agreements with the EU’s closest geographic partners. Yet the negotiations leading to it are an important part in the history of European cooperation as a process distinct from or something different to today’s EU, and its existence shows the multitude ways in which non-EU countries planned and eventually arranged their positions with it in the 1990s.

Jacques Delors and the Idea of a ‘Third Way’ As the post-Second World War division of Europe came to its end, the institutional architecture of European cooperation was changing rapidly. Whereas the countries of the former Eastern bloc were in the early 1990s already focused on their political and economic transition to the West and, as part of this, negotiated bilateral trade and cooperation agreements with the EC, the economically advanced EFTA members had a broader range of options to consider. Prior to the signing of the SEA, the EFTA countries moved closer to the EC through gradual, free trade integration. A significant milestone in closing their trade policy gap was the bilateral free trade agreements between the EFTA countries and the EC finalised in 1972.20 Addressing 20  Finland’s free trade agreement with the EC came to force in 1973. See Tapani Paavonen, Vapaakauppaintegraation kausi. Suomen suhde Länsi-Euroopan integraatioon FINN-

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the need to access the EC markets following the implementation of the common commercial policy and the common external tariffs of the EC’s customs union, the 1972 agreements covered only industrially manufactured goods. They came into force on the eve of the Community’s first enlargement when Denmark and EFTA’s hitherto leading economic power, Britain, left the Association in favour of the EC. Portugal, a member of EFTA since its creation in 1960, followed suit in 1986. EFTA’s remaining members were, then, all small, advanced economies: Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Iceland and Finland, the latter of  which upgraded its associate status in EFTA to full membership in 1986. Fuelled by growing cross-border investments and trade, the economic integration process between the members of EFTA and the EC accelerated in the 1980s. After an EC-EFTA summit held in Luxembourg in April 1984, a declaration bearing the name of the host country kicked off a procedure aiming to reduce remaining non-tariff barriers to trade.21 The aim was to create a ‘European economic space’ through incremental, step-­ by-­step harmonisation of administrative practices, regulations and laws governing economic activity in the EC–EFTA area. As the EFTA and EC negotiators soon found out, the task was daunting. Even minor achievements to remove obstacles of trade and commercial activity took months or more of painstaking, detailed administrative work between the six EFTA countries, the EFTA Secretariat in Geneva and the European Commission in Brussels.22 Compared to the comprehensive approach of the SEA, the so-called Luxembourg process looked a hopelessly dated trade liberalisation mechanism better suited to the circumstances of earlier decades than the 1980s.

EFTAsta EC-vapaakauppaan (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Historiallisia Tutkimuksia, 2008). 21  The Luxembourg Declaration highlighted the importance of ‘further actions to consolidate and strengthen co-operation, with the aim of creating a dynamic European economic space of benefit to their countries’. EFTA Archives, Geneva (hereafter EFTA-Geneva), EFTA Consultative Committee: CSC Documents 1985–1987, EFTA/CSC 3/85, ‘Progress report on the follow-up of the Luxembourg declaration, Note by the Secretariat’, 5 March 1985. 22  The EFTA Secretariat noted already a year after the declaration that ‘[t]he implementation is of necessity a time-consuming process’. EFTA-Geneva, ‘Progress report on the follow-up of the Luxembourg declaration’, 5 March 1985. In the following autumn concerns were raised in the EFTA Consultative Committee about slow progress and ‘a lack of urgency’ in the talks. EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/13/85, ‘Consultative Committee 53rd Meeting Geneva 15 and 16 October 1985, Report by the Chairman’, 25 October 1985.

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Implied in the Luxembourg process however was that this new relationship would go well beyond mere free trade integration. Economic integration in this sense was no longer a matter of dismantling tariff-based or other traditional barriers to trade. Rather, it now focused on deepening economic integration on a broad front. This implied establishing the free movement of the factors of production, goods and services, increasing capital and labour mobility, and harmonising industrial norms and competition policy regulations. All this required synchronising of domestic legislation and regulations in EFTA states, and called for more efficient intra-EFTA coordination.23 Business lobbying organisations exerted pressure on their national governments to devise new institutional arrangements with the EC or to seek its full membership. Foreign direct investments from the EFTA countries to the EC grew significantly in the late 1980s, creating an outflow of capital and tensions within the business and political elites in the EFTA countries. The Swedish government was most obviously nervous about the situation, but concern was visible elsewhere.24 In the eyes of contemporary observers, powerful structural forces—such as growing regionalism in global markets, the EC’s internal consolidation, the lessening of the geopolitical tensions and the roles of the United States and the Soviet Union in European affairs—all pushed the EFTA countries towards the EC.25 By 1988–89 a wide expectation in expert circles was that the EFTA countries would eventually find it hard to resist the pull from the EC to join it as full members.26 23  The need for a unified approach on the EFTA side to deal with the implications of the SEA was stressed in the EFTA Consultative Committee in October 1986: ‘EFTA should be used as a joint platform to provide strength in negotiations with the Community’, see EFTAGeneva/EFTA/CSC/ES/3/86, EFTA/CSC 11/86 (Annex IV) ‘Consultative Committee 55th Meeting, Geneva 27 and 28 October 1986’, 26 November 1986. 24  Raimo Väyrynen, ‘Finland and the European Community: Changing Elite Bargains’, Cooperation and Conflict 28, no. 1 (1993): 31–46. 25  The implications of the SEA were clear to EFTA early on: ‘Unless some initiatives are forthcoming from the EFTA side for parallel developments, the EFTA countries would miss the bus as regards participating in the creation of an benefiting from the European economic space’, Finland’s Minister for Foreign Trade Jermu Laine pointed out as Chairman of the EFTA Consultative Committee in its meeting in Geneva in October 1985. See EFTAGeneva, ‘Consultative Committee 53rd Meeting’, 25 October 1985. 26  Susan Wilson, ‘Austria’s Application for Membership in the European Community and Delors’ Call for A New EC-EFTA Relationship’, University of Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 20, no. 1 (1990): 241–51.

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The problem was that nobody knew how long this might take, or in what order and when the EFTA countries might seek EC membership. The EC was still digesting its Iberian enlargement from the mid-1980s. Furthermore, it had plenty on its plate regarding its own internal affairs. After all, the autumn of 1989 brought to the fore the question of German reunification and the repercussions of the overthrow of the pro-Soviet regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. What heightened concerns in EFTA member states were the messages emanating from the Commission that the EC was not about to open its doors for another round of enlargement for quite some time. After the implementation of the SEA began, the Community signalled that deepening of intra-Community integration and the completion of the single market were its priorities, and thus that there was no wish to open negotiations with potential new members. Commission President Jacques Delors was well known for his critical views against taking on new members, especially Cold War neutrals, lest their presence would hamper the evolution of the Community towards a deeper political union. In his eyes, what ought to come first was the SEA’s implementation and a revision of the basic treaties. Nothing specific would therefore be said about possible enlargement before the existing twelve EC member states had resolved their own future. Thus, the EFTA countries found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. The alternatives were either to seek a revision to the existing bilateral free trade agreements between EFTA countries and the EC by incorporating at least some of the EC’s four freedoms, or to negotiate some kind of multilateral EFTA–EC wide framework agreement. Few knew however how these kinds of agreements would look or how they could be governed given the unique legal order underpinning the EC’s single market. Neither was it obvious prior to 1989 whether the EC would even be interested in such arrangements. Complicating matters for many EFTA states was that, as the implementation of the SEA begun in earnest from 1988, it became clear that the EC was not enthusiastic about continuing the Luxembourg process. Behind this lay the belief that the whole scheme was out of step with the new thinking on the sort of comprehensive economic liberalisation that had been embodied in the SEA. Suddenly, the only option that really remained open to EFTA countries was full membership of the EC. And thanks both to the stance of the EC and the domestic political circumstances of the EFTA states themselves, this, of course, was a choice not yet on the table.

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This made the search for an alternative approach all the more urgent. And it likewise required EFTA members to work far more closely with one another. After the 1984 declaration that launched the Luxembourg process, EFTA states had in fact already gradually strengthened their internal organisation and had started coordinating their negotiating positions vis-­ à-­vis the EC.27 Whereas the 1972 free trade agreements had been a bilateral affair between individual EFTA members and the EC, the Luxembourg process was the start of a multilateral approach, with a High-Level Contact Group consisting of EFTA and EC representatives handling the process.28 However, instead of acting as a unified group towards the EC, the EFTA states also continued to deal bilaterally with the European Commission. Besides obvious technical difficulties, it proved hard to reach consensus on major negotiating items on the EFTA side and the whole process was considered inadequate.29 It was in this context that Delors took the initiative in early 1989. In his inaugural address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 17 January 1989, he proposed opening negotiations with EFTA on a so-called third road; that is, a new type of comprehensive Western  European common market that would consist of both the EC and EFTA. As with the SEA, Delors remarked, the aim of this would be to find a more holistic approach than had been customary in previous rounds of trade liberalisation in the EC or in GATT. In practice this meant that instead of an item-by-item or sector-by-sector approach, there needed to be a reorganisation of cross-­ border economic activity in its entirety, supported by new institutional and legal structures. Referring to the progress already made between the EC and EFTA, Delors stated that: ‘With each step we take the slope is getting steeper. We are coming up to the point where the climber wants to stop to get his breath, to check that he is going in the right direction and that he is properly equipped to go on’. For him, there were two options going forward. First was to ‘stick to our present relations, essentially bilateral, with the ultimate aim of creating a free trade area encompassing the Community and EFTA’. Alternatively there existed the chance to ‘look for 27  The EFTA Secretariat stressed the need for a unified approach on the EFTA side to deal with the implications of the SEA: ‘EFTA should be used as a joint platform to provide strength in negotiations with the Community’. EFTA-Geneva, ‘Consultative Committee 55th Meeting’, 26 November 1986. 28  Ibid. 29   Author interview with Veli Sundbäck (Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs), 17 October 2007.

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a new, more structured partnership with common decision-making and administrative institutions to make our activities more effective and to highlight the political dimension of our cooperation in the economic, social, financial and cultural spheres’.30 Should EFTA ‘strengthen its own structures’, Delors continued, the options would change: In that case the framework for cooperation would rest on the two pillars of our organizations. If it did not, we would simply have a system based on Community rules, which could be extended – in specific areas – to interested EFTA countries and then perhaps, at some date in the future, to other European nations.31

And for the arrangement to work, EFTA countries would have to acknowledge that ‘the single market forms a whole with its advantages and disadvantages, its possibilities and limitations’. There would be no picking and choosing, no optional menus, and members of the wider single market would have to accept the principle of harmonisation of national legislation. As Delors put it: ‘Are our partners willing to transpose the common rules essential to the free movement of goods into their domestic law and, in consequence, accept the supervision of the Court of Justice, which has demonstrated its outstanding competence and impartiality?’32 The immediate reaction in EFTA to Delors’ proposal was mixed. In Austria, the government was somewhat reserved since Delors seemed to have hardened his stance against new membership bids. Delors, after all, used the same speech to state that ‘internal development takes priority over enlargement’.33 Similar concerns existed in Norway, although Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland made clear from the beginning that her government welcomed the opportunity to review EFTA’s relations with the Community.34 The Swedes, aware that an opening of some kind from the Commission was forthcoming, were nonetheless taken by surprise by 30  Address given by Jacques Delors to the European Parliament 17 January 1989, Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 1, 1989 (Luxembourg: Office for the Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989). 31  Ibid. 32  Ibid. 33  Ibid; Dinkelspiel, Den motvillige europén, 119–21. Finland’s President, Mauno Koivisto, used stronger language in his memoirs: ‘To Austria, and in particular to its foreign minister Alois Mock, who represented the Christian Democratic People’s party, the speech of Delors came as a shock’. See Koivisto, Witness to History, 224. 34  Dinkelspiel, Den motvillige europén, 119–21.

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the boldness of Delors’ suggestion and the prominence of the EC–EFTA nexus within the speech. In any case, the response in Stockholm was enthusiastic, and similar reactions came from Iceland and Finland. As Sweden’s main negotiator to the EC, Ulf Dinkelspiel, put it, the mood in Stockholm was that the proposed deepening of relations with the EC fitted Swedish interests ‘like a hand in glove’.35 Despite initial misgivings in some quarters, on a general level the idea of concentric circles and the widening of the single market with a comprehensive agreement suited the EFTA countries quite well. According to Finnish President Mauno Koivisto, ‘For us, the new situation was unexpected, but it was well suited to us’, not only because the plan made economic sense but because it was particularly well suited to the needs of neutral EFTA states. As the view of the Soviet Union still carried weight in Finland, Delors’ ideas were attractive as they ‘did not mean that Finland needed to deviate from its established and growing neutrality line.’36 As researcher Hanna Ojanen later put it, it was as if Delors’ proposal for a ‘third way’ had been invented by Finns themselves.37 Problematic however was how little thought had been given by either EFTA or the EC to the practicalities of this sort of arrangement. As an official who at the time handled the EC desk at the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Antti Kuosmanen, described the situation at the end of 1988, EFTA officials in Geneva and the member states had been aware that ideas regarding a new approach to EFTA–EC relations had been aired in Brussels at a high level, but a general feeling was that they had been abandoned.38 In the autumn of 1988, the Swedish government had drafted a model for a possible bilateral Swedish-EC framework agreement for its own internal use, where among other things the institutional questions had been discussed. As the crucial issue would be how to secure at least some influence in the EC’s internal decision-making, the Swedes had devised a solution where they would have a right to participate in the preparatory stages of decision-making but would have no formal position in the EC’s institutions. As a model for this, the Swedes had discovered the FINEFTA agreement from 1961, where EFTA countries had made a  Ibid.  Koivisto, Witness to History, 225. 37  Ojanen, ‘If in “Europe”, then in its “core”?’, 156. 38  Antti Kuosmanen, Finland’s Journey to the European Union (Maastricht: European Institute of Public Administration, 2001), 5–6. 35 36

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separate agreement with Finland with its own institutional structure to enable its participation in the Association’s activities.39 Similar work had been conducted in the EFTA Secretariat in Geneva, where officials had sketched out ideas for broadening the single market but with the inclusion of a joint EC–EFTA institution overseeing the whole structure.40 In the summer of 1988, Delors, in discussions with EFTA leaders and a speech during a visit to Helsinki, had hinted that there would be an agreement that would improve the conditions to access the EC’s markets.41 In the following autumn, Commission officials had asked their EFTA counterparts that they would come up with a proposal for a comprehensive solution, but this had not led to further discussions at that time.42 In November 1988, Eric Hayes, a Commission official responsible for EFTA affairs, explained his own private thinking to EFTA representatives about a ‘framework agreement’ to be negotiated between the EC and EFTA.  What in Hayes’ view was essential was that EFTA should take the initiative in the matter.43 As the general feeling was that the ball was in EFTA’s court, a meeting of EFTA officials on 11 January 1989 revealed that few anticipated a move from the EC regarding the idea of a new framework agreement. It was decided that the whole matter would not be made public and that internally the issue would be considered ‘very confidential’ for the time being.44 Speculation was rife regarding Delors’ actual motivations. Was he merely trying to forestall EFTA countries’ membership applications by creating a temporary stop-gap measure? Or did his initiative reflect a more thought-through plan for the future institutional architecture of European integration, consisting of the concentric circles he had been talking about 39  Dinkelspiel, Den motvillige europén, 116–18. For more on the origins of Finland’s association with EFTA see Matthew Broad, ‘Transatlantic Relations and Finland’s Application to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), 1959–61’, Faravid 48 (2019): 65–87. 40  Author interview with Eric Hayes (EC Commission), 11 October 2018. 41  Author interview with Erik Forsman (Federation of Finnish Industries), 18 February 2010. 42  Kuosmanen, Finland’s Journey, 5–6. 43  Archives of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Helsinki (hereafter AFMFA), Telegram Geneva-Helsinki, ‘Efta–EC-yhteistyö; EC-komission ajatuksia puitesopimuksen tekemisestä’, 1 December 1988. 44  AFMFA, Memorandum by Veli Sundbäck, ‘Efta-EC; Mahdollinen uusi puitejärjestely’, 11 January 1989. From their direct personal contacts with Delors it appears that both the Swedish premier Ingvar Carlson and Norway’s premier Gro Harlem Brundtland expected Delors to use his inaugural speech in Strasbourg as an occasion to propose a new approach, but had no knowledge of what its details might be. Dinkelspiel, Den motvillige europén, 118–9; Hayes, From Cold War to Common Currency, 20, n. 43.

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earlier, each with their own organisational structures and legal arrangements? The overall consensus in EFTA capitals was that the EC was trying to achieve two simultaneous goals. First, the aim indeed was to forestall the opening of a new enlargement round before deepening of cooperation among the twelve had taken place. What the Commission in particular had in mind was a membership application from Austria, but possibly also from Norway. According to Dinkelspiel, the second motivation was to develop cooperation with EFTA ‘to strengthen Europe’s role in the world’. This was in line with Delors’ thinking of a (Western) Europe of ‘concentric circles, with EC countries as its core – though not necessarily all the twelve – who were willing to proceed towards a federation’.45 As the talks eventually started, more clarity emerged on what the EC’s motivations were. In November 1989, Commission officials gave their EFTA counterparts several reasons why they had felt ‘compelled to establish more structured links’. These are worth citing in full: Firstly, the swifter pace of Community integration raised immediate questions about our relations with our neighbours. Secondly, criticism by some EC Member States and by certain social partners had confirmed that the case-by-case approach was too piecemeal and that a more comprehensive approach was necessary. Accession applications were a third factor. Austria, Turkey and others would soon be knocking at the door. Fourthly, the events in the Eastern bloc. Fifthly, and perhaps most importantly, bureaucrats and politicians sometimes lagged behind political realities; the political reality in this case was that they had an 18- or 19-member market and needed to adopt a modern approach taking account of this.46

While it is obvious from this that there were several background factors on the EC side motivating its approach, we should be careful overemphasising the EC’s need to avoid new membership applications.47 Indeed, it seems clear from the available evidence that what Delors had in mind was not merely to use the EEA as a tactical ploy to prevent or slow down possible membership applications from EFTA countries. As Eric Hayes has said, the Commission would have had no trouble in dealing with new  Dinkelspiel, Den motvillige europén, 120–1.  EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/INF/20/90 ‘19th Joint Meeting of the Delegations representing The Economic and Social Committee of the EC and the EFTA Consultative Committee held in Paris on 27/28 November 1989. Act of Proceedings’, 11 May 1990. 47  Hayes, From Cold War to Common Currency, 19. 45 46

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membership applications; so too did it have all the administrative requirements to prevent any membership bid progressing until the EC was ready.48 Delors’ proposal thus more likely reflected a profound sense that Europe’s whole institutional architecture would soon need to be rethought and a new overarching structure was required to arbitrate with those countries orbiting the EC. Delors’ view, then, was strategic, and the EEA for him represented a key building block for a future where ‘the European Community would form the core or a hub, and there would be different arrangements for the other, peripheral countries’.49 The characteristics of this sort of broader structure were clarified in an internal EFTA memorandum later in the autumn: the ‘inner circle’ would be constituted by the 12 Community Member States aiming to reach economic and political union. The next circle would be constituted by the countries making up the EES [European Economic Space, the original name of the EEA] ensuring free movement of goods, capital, services and persons, accompanied by cooperation in other fields between the EC and the EFTA countries. Individual Eastern countries which have succeeded in their reforms could then become part of that circle or form a wider one.50

What Delors, who had sounded out his ideas in the EC capitals in advance, had in mind was a permanent solution to the dilemma caused by the conflicting demands of deepening the Community with the widening of its geographic scope. The answer lay in finding an alternative that allowed for the single market to be extended to EU members and non-­members alike. Eventually, the Community would likely accept into their fold new members who fulfilled the necessary criteria, but the EEA proposal appeared to indicate that Brussels was not prepared to enlarge at the detriment of its internal cohesion. And it also assumed that Cold War Western European neutrals might not be the first to join this enlarged  Author interview with Eric Hayes, 11 October 2018.  Ibid; Hayes, From Cold War to Common Currency, 19–20. 50   EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/W/12/89, ‘Consultative Committee 62nd Meeting, Geneva, 16 and 17 October 1989 and 19th Joint Meeting with the Economic and Social Committee: The development of EFTA-EC relations and the particular role of the EFTA Consultative Committee and the Economic and Social Committee of the EC.  Discussion paper by Mr. K. Sandegren’, 10 October 1989. 48 49

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EC. According to West Germany’s then Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, it was feasible that those ex-Soviet bloc countries transitioning towards democracy and a market economy were better candidates to join the EC since membership would strengthen this development. Poland and Hungary, rather than Austria or Sweden, thus for a time looked more certain to accede.51

Hopes and Cracks in the EFTA Camp Despite the opening of talks between EFTA and the EC, there was little indication that the two sides would proceed with haste. A formal response from the EFTA side to Delors’ proposal had emerged from an EFTA ministerial meeting in Oslo in March. This sanctioned preparations for more formal negotiations to begin, which in turn were initiated on the official level in Brussels in June 1989. Besides agreeing that the scope of the negotiations was likely to be wide, however, views differed about what the end result should be. Delors, for his part, was keen to agree on a statement of principle in favour of an EFTA–EC structure. But there was no consensus about what this meant in practice.52 While Finland, Iceland and Norway appeared happy with pursuing a more pragmatic, undefined approach, the Swiss government were decidedly cool to the idea. Having been aware of what Delors had previously said about the necessity of accepting the evolving acquis communautaire as the foundation of the arrangement, Berne foresaw serious difficulties in going along with an ill-­ defined process that could wind up with it being forced to accept unfavourable policies and institutional arrangements. Complicating matters further, Sweden, supported by Austria, indicated early on that the goal should be to join the EC’s customs union rather than simply the single market. This, though, would require closer alignment with the core political purpose of the EC of the sort that neither Finland nor Switzerland was willing to accept. Eventually, as the negotiations began in early 1990, this demand was dropped and the goal was set to participate in the EC’s single market programme only.53

 Ibid.  Hayes, From Cold War to Common Currency, 20. 53   EFTA-Geneva/Ministerial Meetings Working Papers 1989–1990/CS/29/90, ‘Informal EFTA ministerial meeting, Geneva, 3 April 1990’, 30 April 1990. 51 52

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Given these initial difficulties, progress in the negotiations was surprisingly rapid—even if it did take a while for the Commission to put together its negotiating team and thereafter determine the part of the acquis which was relevant to the EEA.54 From the start, it was envisaged that the agreement ought to enter into force at the same time as the full implementation of the EC’s single market programme due at the beginning of 1993. The principle was to apply EC legislation in various categories with immediate effect and to deal with any problems in a transitional period. The point of departure was that the EEA agreement was to become an instrument that easily transposed relevant EC legislation into EFTA countries’ national legislation. Likewise from the off, the Commission made it clear that there could be very few exceptions to adopting EC legislation in the EEA. The so-called negotiating mandate mainly concerned formal derogations and transitional periods in the single market. As the substantive matters mostly concerned the trade of goods and were already familiar from the Luxembourg process, the negotiations proceeded surprisingly smoothly from one area of single market-related legislation to another. What the negotiators found, somewhat to their surprise, was how far their economies and regulatory frameworks had already converged during the preceding years of free trade integration and global trade liberalisation. The comprehensive approach, mirroring the principles of the SEA, worked unexpectedly well, although the broad range of issues meant long hours for the negotiators and their assisting staff in order to sift through an almost unfathomably large corpus of Community law. As the EFTA countries were all highly developed, open economies with a liberal trade policy outlook, the EEA agreement focused largely on how they would operate within, rather than adapt to, the single market. The bulk of the agreement was hence negotiated with speed during the course of 1990, and finishing touches were given to it in the first half of 1991. This, it would soon prove, was the relatively easy part. For problems arose on the EFTA side regarding its own capacity to deliver the institutional stability and efficiency to run the EEA. As EFTA’s internal divisions and occasional clashes between the member states were well known, the Commission stressed that EFTA as an organisation would need to strengthen itself internally in order to shoulder its share of the burden of the practical operative work. However, what would happen if any one of its members decided to change course and seek full EC membership? What  Ibid.

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would that do to the internal cohesion of the Association, and how much of a voice could a fracturing and diminishing EFTA have in its future dealings with an expanding Community, if its members started to jump ship?55 As the preparations for the opening of the negotiations at the official level commenced over the summer of 1989, it was thus not unexpected that the EEA talks would encounter some sort of hitch. This happened most spectacularly when, breaking ranks with its partners, Austria submitted its membership application to the EC in July 1989.56 Austria’s move came as no surprise, as it had already earlier indicated its willingness to explore opportunities to join the EC while maintaining its permanent neutrality. It was in a joint meeting of the EFTA Council and the EC ministerial conference in Tampere, Finland, in June 1988, that Austria’s Foreign Minister Alois Mock informed his EFTA counterparts of his government’s intentions. According to a Finnish official present in the meeting, Mock’s announcement ‘spoiled the celebratory mood of some of his colleagues’, as the other participants had entertained hopes for strengthening the internal cohesion of EFTA before a long-awaited opening of new talks with the EC.57 And certainly the prospect that one, and perhaps even several, EFTA members might be changing course in their integration policy while the EEA negotiations were still underway, did increase tensions. As the thinking went, if EFTA was to secure its influence in the suggested ‘common decision-making and administrative institutions’, it would have to be strengthened institutionally and learn to speak with one voice. But the Austrian move appeared to do little more than show the EEA to be a mere bridge to full EC membership. Perhaps worse still, it seemed to indicate a preference for EFTA states to deal with the Community bilaterally rather than multilaterally. Hopes for enhanced intra-EFTA cooperation thus faded. It did admittedly help that Austria’s application did not meet with an immediate response from the EC. This ensured that the pace of the EEA talks was not seriously interrupted. But the question of EFTA’s internal cohesion was again thrown into doubt when in October 1990 the Swedish government announced that it too planned to seek full EC membership. The manner of this announcement was in fact arguably 55   Author interview with Veli Sundbäck (Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs), 17 October 2007. 56  Gehler, ‘A Newcomer Experienced in European Integration’, 137–9. 57  Kuosmanen, Finland’s Journey, 5.

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more fatal for EFTA unity than Mock’s earlier announcement. For unlike Austria, Sweden’s decision to launch a membership bid took its partners in EFTA by complete surprise. Coming at a sensitive moment in the EEA negotiations, the Swedish government was thus forced to expend significant energy reassuring its EFTA colleagues that it was still committed to the EEA concept.58 Unavoidably, though, the momentum for a more institutionally ambitious agreement began to weaken. The cracks in the EFTA camp increasingly suggested that, far from becoming a permanent feature in the European institutional landscape, the EEA would simply serve as a waiting room for countries on their way to joining the Community in full. These internal squabbles paled into relative insignificance however when compared to the challenge caused by the Commission’s outlining of the EC agenda in 1990. First, since the concept of the single market needed to be adopted as a whole, it was deemed necessary that the relatively wealthy EFTA economies would have to contribute to the Community’s cohesion funds. Second, Switzerland and Austria would have to open their borders for transit traffic through the Alps. Third, Norway and Iceland, while not part of the common fisheries policy, would be obliged to allocate fishing quotas to EC countries. Fourth, capital movements would have to be ‘liberalized completely’, which Switzerland, among others, had difficulties in accepting from the outset.59 EFTA, for its part, put its own demands on the table regarding decision-making. As the talks opened, they were ‘concerned that the question of full participation in the decision-shaping and decision-making process, as proposed so far by the Commission, would not lead to a satisfactory solution for the EFTA countries’. If special care was not taken to ‘ensure that the agreement would have an evolutionary character’, it might ‘at worst […] mean their satellization’. As the EFTA Consultative Committee – the body in EFTA comprising trade unions and business organisations – put it in a report in October 1989, ‘it was not enough that the EFTA countries had to take over the hard core of the acquis communautaire, they also needed to have 58  EFTA-Geneva/HLNG Documents, ‘Annex II to HLNG 34/90’, 19 October 1990, and EFTA Working Documents/EFTA/NG/V4/90, ‘Note on Comitology’, 11 October 1990. 59  EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/INF/20/90, ‘19th Joint Meeting of the Delegations representing The Economic and Social Committee of the EC and the EFTA Consultative Committee held in Paris on 27/28 November 1989. Act of Proceedings’, 11 May 1990.

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a say in its further development, as it was hardly likely that the train of integration would stop where it stood at the end of 1992’.60 From what they had heard in 1989 and early 1990, the EFTA negotiators were hopeful that the Community would indeed be interested in creating the ‘common decision-making and administrative institutions’ Delors had spoken so warmly about in his Strasbourg speech. Even in spring 1990, the feeling on the EFTA side was that the Community would eventually modify its rigid stance and seek to build an overarching body covering the whole structure. As EFTA’s Secretary-General Georg Reisch made clear, the Association’s members were sure that ‘result [i.e. the EEA agreement] must be a balance of rights and obligations. There will of course be exceptions. Exceptions are not unknown to members of the European Community themselves.’61 The EFTA countries understood full well that by adopting the acquis they would have to ‘accept policies which they themselves had no part in the design of’. But for future legislation certain to affect the countries of EFTA and the EC alike, ‘EFTA would insist on discussing the question jointly. A partnership of the kind would mean that the views of both the EFTA and the Community countries are fully taken into account when legislation is [e]nvisaged’.62 With Delors himself leading the way, the Commission disappointed the EFTA negotiators by hardening its positions even further during the course of 1990. As Delors said in April, ultimately there would be no place for EFTA in EC decision-making. Referring to the easier items in the negotiations regarding EFTA’s market access, and also making clear that no economic benefits would be forthcoming unless the institutional questions were settled, Commission officials stressed that ‘the economic content and the legal institutional aspect were closely linked, and that they would need to preserve the autonomy of EC decision-making.’63 In the spring of 1990, the EFTA negotiators subsequently came up with the idea of a two-pillar structure, where the implementation and application of EEA rules would be divided between the EC Commission and a new surveillance authority, with the two bodies linked through a

60  EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/18/89, ‘Consultative Committee, 62nd Meeting, Geneva, 16 and 17 October 1989. Report by the Chairman’, 2 November 1989. 61  EFTA-Geneva, ‘19th Joint Meeting of the Delegations’, 11 May 1990. 62  Ibid. 63  Ibid.

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joint organisation at the EEA level.64 But while this promised that the EEA ‘agreement remained an intergovernmental agreement without supranational characteristic’,65 it did not address the question of decision-­ making in the way the EFTA side had hoped. In further discussions during autumn 1990 a pragmatic solution was put forward by the EFTA side on ‘comitology’—that is, decision-making. Since ‘a solution which would put the EFTA States in front of a fait accompli will never be accepted’, an alternative was proposed premised on ‘regular co-operation between those at the national level who are responsible for putting the agreement into practice’. This in effect would give EFTA countries the right to participate at the preparatory phase of EU legislation if it were relevant to the EEA as a whole. And it would have the advantage, if not in practice then in principle, that ‘neither side’ would be seen to be ‘interfering with the decision-­ making autonomy’ of the other.66

A Successful Treaty? How to approach the institutional conundrum divided EFTA countries until the end of the negotiations in autumn 1991, with the Swiss adopting the most critical position. In communications with other EFTA capitals in March and April 1991, the Swiss delegates informed them that it would be unlikely they could accept the mere consultative status of the EFTA countries in comitology as suggested by the negotiators.67 In the end, after painstaking negotiations, the Swiss yielded and the institutional questions were settled in October 1991. For EEA decision-making and application of the agreement, a separate Council of Ministers was set up whose task was to draw general policy lines and discuss possible modifications of the agreement. Decision-making was based on a consensus where the EFTA countries would first need to coordinate their own position and present their opinion with one voice. As the main operative institution, an EEA 64  EFTA-Geneva, ‘Informal EFTA ministerial meeting’, 30 April 1990; EFTA-GENEVA/ HLNG Documents/34/90, ‘EFTA-EC negotiating group V on legal and institutional questions, Brussels, 11 October 1990’, 19 October 1990; ‘Report by Chairman; Annex I to HLNG 34/90’, 19 October 1990; Working Documents/EFTA/NG/V/2/90, ‘Note on Surveillance’, 11 October 1990. 65  Fossum and Graver, Squaring the Circle of Brexit, 46. 66  EFTA-Geneva, ‘Note on Comitology’, 11 October 1990. 67   EFTA-Geneva/Ministerial Meetings Working Papers 1990–1991/CS/15/91, ‘Informal EFTA ministerial meeting, Geneva, 1 March 1991’, 12 April 1991.

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Joint Committee was set up under the auspices of the Council to oversee the practical implementation of the agreement and to resolve possible problems. Like the Council, it also acted on the consensus principle. In addition to these, a separate joint EEA Parliamentary Committee and an EEA Consultative Committee for Economic and Social Affairs were set up. Participation in the preparation of new EU legislation was resolved by requiring the Commission to consult EFTA experts in the same way as experts were consulted in EU countries. The EFTA countries were also granted limited access to the preparatory and implementing committees of EU legislation. And the EFTA states would establish their own oversight body, the EEA Surveillance Authority, which mirrored the role of the Commission. Most significantly, the original agreement included a common EEA Court, which would act as a court of first instance to resolve disputes arising from the EEA agreement. The ECJ rejected this in December 1991, as it held that this was contrary to the Treaty of Rome and the ECJ’s position as the ultimate adjudicator of Community law.68 It was subsequently replaced with an independent EFTA Court whose powers were limited to the application of the EEA agreement to EFTA members. After resolving the institutional and legal issues, there were still a number of difficult questions left: fish, transit traffic and the cohesion fund contributions all required agreement. Norway and Iceland had bilateral negotiations with the Commission on fishing rights, as did Switzerland and Austria on transit traffic. Fishing was the most problematic in the last phase. Finally, a solution was found that certain fish products in the EFTA countries were completely free to enter the EC market and tariff concessions were negotiated with some other products. Norway and Iceland, on the other hand, granted the Community the fishing rights they had requested in their waters. Why were the remaining issues, which had appeared so intractable earlier, resolved in 1991? In the first half of 1991 a general pessimism existed that the EEA would not be realised, given the differences of opinion both within EFTA members and between the negotiators on institutional questions. However, during the last months of the negotiations over the summer and autumn of 1991, a stronger political will emerged which 68   EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/INF/58/91, ‘ECJ Opinion’, 16 December 1991; Consultative Committee Documents, ‘Opinion of the European Court of Justice on the EEA Agreement. Note by the Secretariat’, 19 December 1991.

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provided the impetus to see the negotiations to their successful end. Even the recalcitrant Swiss negotiators were ultimately willing to swallow the final agreement, and the overriding benefits of having a less than satisfactory agreement in place seems to have been a motivating factor in this regard. This same strand of thought appears to have influenced the willingness on all sides to reach a compromise and close the negotiations. With the EC’s Maastricht summit approaching, and with it the prospect of the Community’s post-Cold War enlargement, the function of the EEA had changed. For the majority of EFTA members, the EEA was no longer to be a permanent fixture in their integration strategies, but a temporary solution allowing smooth access to the single market while they waited for their entry into the Community as full members. The result was a far cry from the expectations regarding an institutionally coherent and strong grouping of concentric circles that had been envisaged just two years earlier. On the other hand, this fact helped make the EEA easier to accept, flaws and all. In institutional questions, EFTA members gave way on too many of the Community’s demands; the Community, in turn, gave way bilaterally to individual EFTA countries on the sensitive questions of cohesion fund contributions, fish quotas and transit traffic. Despite the grand compromises achieved in 1991 and early 1992, the stony road to the EEA was not yet complete. One more surprise was to come in the ratification phase. The agreement was planned to come into force from the beginning of 1993, but it was rejected in a referendum in Switzerland on 6 December 1992. This led to a need to reopen the agreement regarding Swiss cohesion fund payments, the result of which was that the EFTA countries were made to pick up the slack. With this sorted, on 1 January 1994, the EEA agreement finally entered into force, one year later than originally scheduled. It brought 12 EU countries and five EFTA countries—Finland, Sweden, Austria, Norway and Iceland— together, while Liechtenstein would join when it acceded to EFTA in 1995. In the end there was very little left of the original ambition to create an institutionally robust, overarching structure that could manage the varying speeds and degrees of integration among certain European states surrounding the EC core. As Robert Pelletier, a French industry representative in the EC’s Economic and Social Committee, said about the whole exercise in February 1992, ‘many problems had been avoided rather than solved’. On a more positive note, Finland’s Ambassador to the EC, Erkki

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Liikanen, speculated that the EEA might nevertheless ‘become a durable part of the architecture of Europe for those countries which did not wish EC membership’.69 Looking back on events over the last two decades, this was highly prescient. For with both the eventual refusal of the Norwegian electorate to accept the country’s accession into the EU in 1994 and Iceland and Liechtenstein remaining as its other members, the EEA by force of circumstance has indeed become a permanent feature of European cooperation. While not reaching the lofty aspirations of its initiators, it was nevertheless thought of as, and has in some form remained, an alternative to the strict supranational framework of today’s EU.  It was the Commission’s Eric Hayes who in 1992 spoke of how ‘the EEA is undoubtedly important even though it is not what it was originally intended to be’.70 Tracing the history of its development reminds us not only of how and why this is the case, but also that integration ‘by other means’ has been something the institutions and members of the EU, as much as the countries outside it, have long wrestled with. What was preconceived as everlasting in 1989, in the course of the negotiations gained a temporary character, but then after a number of twists and turns became permanent, an outcome that many had wished for, but no one planned to happen in the way it did.

69  EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/INF/9/92, ‘23rd Joint Meeting of the delegations representing the Economic and Social Committee of the EC and the EFTA Consultative Committee held in the Hague on 20 November 1991. Record of proceedings’, 10 February 1992. 70  EFTA-Geneva/EFTA/CSC/INF 25/92, ‘24th Joint meeting between delegations of the Economic and Social Committee of the EC and the EFTA Consultative Committee, Reykjavik, 19 May 1992. Report by the EFTA Secretariat’, 23 June 1992.

CHAPTER 8

Regional Integration in the Eastern Bloc: Energy Cooperation Between CMEA Countries, c.1950s–80s Falk Flade

This chapter explores the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), also known as Comecon, as an example of regional integration within the Eastern bloc. Along with the defence-based Warsaw Pact, the CMEA was the most important international organisation (IO) in Eastern Europe and existed from 1949 to 1991. CMEA membership constituted an important early integration experience for those former socialist countries in Central and Eastern European (CEE) which later joined the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007. Consequently, the CMEA’s heritage must be taken into account as a part of the overall European integration history. By doing so, this chapter contributes to the efforts of the volume to ‘provincialise’ the EU in integration history and capture ‘integration’ as a concept that applied equally to Eastern as well as Western Europe.

F. Flade (*) European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_8

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Despite its former significance, the CMEA is largely forgotten today. Those who did and do study it often present an image of failure. For decades, the CMEA was commonly interpreted as nothing more than a tool of Soviet control over its satellites.1 Since the 1990s, however, these narratives have increasingly been challenged by researchers due to better access to primary sources and based on new research methods.2 These works asked about the agency of individual CMEA countries, their room for manoeuvre and respective negotiation strategies, as well as the CMEA’s modes of cooperation.3 Most recent research tries to go beyond the image of failure. Instead of analysing the CMEA’s history only from the perspective of its dissolution, they take into account the specific characteristics of planned economies as well as the CMEA’s own standards.4 Since comparison of the CMEA with Western counterparts such as the European Economic Community (EEC) reinforces this image of failure, in this chapter the CMEA is historicised in its own right by focusing on processes inside the organisation instead of general outcomes.5 Following this research agenda, the chapter applies the concept of (economic) integration compatible with the prevailing realities in former socialist Eastern Europe. In his seminal work The Theory of Economic Integration, Bela Balassa broadly defined economic integration as ‘measures designed to abolish discrimination between economic units

1  This was influenced by the realistic school of thought in international relations theory. See for example Zbigniew K.  Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict. Revised and Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967). 2  See for example Randall W. Stone, Satellites and Commissars. Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet-Bloc Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Gerd Herzog, ‘Schwäche als Stärke: Bargaining Power im RGW’, Arbeitspapiere des Osteuropa-Instituts der Freien Universität Berlin no. 17 (1998). 3  See for example Ralf Ahrens, Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe? Die DDR im RGW-Strukturen und handelspolitische Strategien 1963–1976 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2000); Suvi Kansikas, ‘Room to Manoeuvre? National Interests and Coalition-Building in the CMEA, 1969–74’, in Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy (eds.), Reassessing Cold War Europe (London: Routledge, 2011), 193–209. 4  Uwe Müller, ‘Introduction: Failed and Forgotten? New Perspectives on the History of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance’, Comparativ 27, nos. 5–6 (2017): 7–25, here 10. 5  Laurien Crump and Simon Godard, ‘Reassessing Communist International Organisations: A Comparative Analysis of COMECON and the Warsaw Pact in relation to their Cold War Competitors’, Contemporary European History 27, no. 1 (2018): 85–109, here 87.

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belonging to different national states’.6 This definition was applied to (Western) European integration, too.7 Such a definition, however, is not entirely appropriate for the economic reality of the Eastern bloc. The CMEA did not aim at reducing customs duties or tariffs. Rather, it focused on deepening the division of labour to make use of scale effects.8 Economic integration in socialist Eastern Europe had to be in line with the functioning of a planned economy with the state monopoly in foreign trade as one of the main tools.9 Since the mid-1960s, the term ‘Socialist Economic Integration’ (SEI) was increasingly used in the Eastern bloc. The East German Economic Encyclopaedia followed the official interpretation and defined SEI as the process of planned harmonization, mutual complementation and entanglement of the economies of CMEA member countries, based on the comprehensive development of the socialist international division of labour. The Socialist Economic Integration aims at ensuring high efficiency, the necessary proportionality and economic growth in every member country by means of international coordination, specialization and cooperation as well as the merging and concentration of economic and scientific-technical efforts and resources.10

This definition points to some key aspects of economic integration as understood in socialist Eastern Europe: it was designed to foster at the international level specialisation and cooperation in production and science. This specialisation was reached through intergovernmental agreement on joint projects and aimed at the above-mentioned scale effects. Based on the analysis of the transnational energy sector of CMEA

6  Béla Balassa, The Theory of Economic Integration (Homewood: Irwin, 1961), 1–2. Subsequently, he distinguished between cooperation (actions aimed at lessening discrimination) and integration itself (suppression of forms of discrimination) and varying degrees of integration (like a free trade area, customs union, common market, economic union and complete economic integration). 7  See for example Hans-Jürgen Wagener and Thomas Eger, Europäische Integration. Wirtschaft und Recht, Geschichte und Politik (Munich: Vahlen, 2011), 42. 8  Müller, ‘Introduction’, 14. 9  André Steiner, ‘The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance. An Example of Failed Economic Integration?’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 39, no 2 (2013): 240–58, here 246. 10  Ökonomisches Lexikon, 3rd ed., s.v. “Integration, sozialistische ökonomische.” (Berlin: Die Wirtschaft, 1979), 103–4 [translation by the author].

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countries, this chapter will assess if CMEA countries reached the aim of economic integration by their own standards. In addition to the two definitions of (economic) integration discussed above, there is a third definition that is useful here—one that focuses on technology—which was not exclusively applied to either market or planned economies. Thomas J. Misa and Johan Schot introduced the term ‘hidden integration’ as a ‘process of linking and delinking of infrastructures, as well as the circulation and appropriation of artefacts, systems and knowledge’.11 Especially with regard to the transnational energy sector of CMEA countries, which was mainly based on the construction of large-scale energy infrastructure, this notion of integration provides a third framework within which to assess regional integration in Eastern Europe. The following pages will illustrate the establishment of the CMEA, its structure and modes of cooperation. Following the macro-level approach, this chapter focuses on the activity of national governments of CMEA member countries and their representatives as well as on CMEA bodies such as the Executive Committee and Standing Commissions. Special attention will be paid to the energy sector as one of the main policy competences of the CMEA. The analysis is based on archive material from the Federal Archive Berlin (BArch, Bundesarchiv Berlin) as well as the Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE, Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Ekonomiki) and the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF, Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Rossiyskoy Federatsii) in Moscow. This will also allow us to discuss the question of whether the CMEA can be interpreted as an integration project led by the Soviet Union. Although integration processes in Western Europe were of high relevance for regional integration in Eastern Europe, this strand of research will not be part of this chapter.12

11  Thomas Misa and Johan Schot, ‘Inventing Europe: Technology and the Hidden Integration of Europe’, History and Technology 21, no. 1 (2005): 1–19, here 1. 12  Regarding the influence of the EEC on the East European integration process see for example Suvi Kansikas, Socialist Countries Face the European Community: Soviet-Bloc Controversies over East-West Trade (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2014); Axel Lebahn and Gottfried Zieger (eds.), Rechtliche und Wirtschaftliche Beziehungen zwischen den Integrationsräumen in West- und Osteuropa (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1980); Christopher T. Saunders (ed.), Regional Integration in East and West (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1983).

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The Cold War and the Establishment of the CMEA In Europe, the first decade after 1945 was marked by the establishment of new international organisations to overcome the unprecedented destruction and mistrust caused by the Second World War. While, as we learn from this volume, some of these organisations included countries from both Western and Eastern Europe, others only comprised countries from one or the other side. Against this general background of (regional) integration, the formation of two major geopolitical and economic blocs took place, shaping the history of the entire continent in the following decades. The CMEA was established in the midst of the Cold War as a Soviet countermeasure to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.13 In January 1949, the Soviet Union invited high-ranking economic experts from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania to discuss the formation of an economic grouping of their own. At the meeting in Moscow, it was the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, who proposed the establishment of an economic coordination council.14 The press communiqué published in the Soviet newspaper Pravda in turn justified its establishment by making reference to the Western ‘economic boycott’ of the Soviet Union as well as the ‘Marshall Plan diktat’. The CMEA would aim at the ‘exchange of economic know-how, mutual technical support and […] raw materials, foodstuff, machinery and equipment’. The protocol mentioned the elaboration of a joint economic plan with the aim of avoiding competition between the industries of socialist countries.15 A joint economic plan for all socialist countries in Eastern Europe promised to hand considerable influence on national economic planning of other CMEA members to the Soviet Union, since it was the Soviet Union which had the most experience in economic planning. The establishment of the CMEA superseded other integration ideas and 13  Scott D. Parrish and Mikhail M. Narinsky, ‘New Evidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan, 1947: Two Reports’, Cold War International History Project Working Paper  9 (1994), 13ff. 14  Dagmara Jajeśniak-Quast, ‘“Hidden Integration”  – RGW-Wirtschaftsexperten in europäischen Netzwerken’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 55, no. 1 (2014): 179–95, here 182–3. Based on material from Romanian archives, Elena Dragomir advanced the hypothesis that the creation of the CMEA was initiated by the Romanian leadership. See Elena Dragomir, ‘The Creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance as seen from the Romanian Archives’, Historical Research 88, no. 240 (2015): 355–79. 15  Both documents are printed in Alexander Uschakow, Integration im RGW (Comecon). Dokumente (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1983), 18–21.

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integration projects in Eastern Europe such as a federation of Balkan countries—discussed in more detail in this volume by Pauli Heikkilä—and a similar federation between Poland and Czechoslovakia.16 After the CMEA’s foundation in January 1949, a basic infrastructure was established. An office in Moscow was responsible for the administration and the regular meetings of representatives of member countries— the so-called Sessions—held every three months. Important events in this initial period were the accession of Albania and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to the CMEA in 1949 and 1950, respectively.17 Also of note was the agreement reached on the costless exchange of patents and technical documentation, the so-called Sofia principle. Between November 1950 and March 1954, no CMEA Session was held at all. This is likely because the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, preferred other ways of exercising control such as through bilateral meetings or the deployment of advisers and secret police.18 This system of entrusting substantial components of national economic planning to Soviet advisers and technicians was called the Soviet embassy system.19 In March 1953, Stalin died. His death put an end to the harsh years of Stalinism and initiated a period of fundamental political, economic and cultural transformation. In the midst of this, the nature of the relationship between the Soviet Union and its satellites slowly transformed from exploitation into cooperation.20 The changes in the political sphere also influenced the modes of economic cooperation between Eastern bloc countries. The new aim was to coordinate five-year plans of all socialist countries. In November 1954 representatives of CMEA member states agreed to hand this task over to Gosplan, the Soviet state planning office 16  Jochen Bethkenhagen and Heinrich Machowski, Integration im Rat für gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe. Entwicklung, Organisation, Erfolge und Grenzen (Berlin: Berlin-Verlag, 1976), 9. 17  Mongolia, Cuba and Vietnam joined the CMEA in the 1960s and 1970s. China and North Korea had an observer status, and Yugoslavia became an associate. Finland, Iraq, Mexico and other developing countries signed cooperation agreements in the 1970s and 1980s. 18  Andrzej Korbonski, ‘CMEA, Economic Integration, and Perestroika, 1949–1989’, Studies in Comparative Communism 23, no. 1 (1990): 47–72, here 50–1. 19  Jozef M. van Brabant, Economic Integration in Eastern Europe (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), 22. 20  Valerie J. Bunce, ‘The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability’, International Organization 39, no. 1 (1985): 1–46, here 10–1.

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responsible for processing economic data in order to establish short- and long-term economic plans. Although similar central planning institutions existed in every planned economy, Gosplan had gathered unrivalled experience when coordinating the economic activity of Soviet republics.21 Despite Gosplan’s important role, the CMEA administration in Moscow was extended. The office was transformed into a permanent secretariat in 1954.22 Its main task was to administer the CMEA as an institution and to prepare recommendations. These recommendations, however, were not legally binding and did not have the potential to enforce a supranational economic policy. The temporary working groups were upgraded and became Standing Commissions. The task of these Standing Commissions was to work out specialisation agreements for industrial branches of CMEA member countries. The general idea was that every CMEA state would specialise in the production of specific goods such as planes, buses and streetcars, and then supply all other CMEA countries in order to reach economies of scale.23 For the entire period of its existence, the First Secretary came from the Soviet Union: Aleksandr Pavlov (1954–58), Nikolai Faddeev (1958–83) and Vyacheslav Sychev (1983–91).24 In the late 1950s, the number of Standing Commissions increased to more than 20. CMEA Sessions, regularly taking place in one of the member countries’ capitals, were complemented by conferences of heads of state of CMEA countries. Although these conferences never became an institutionalised part of the CMEA, they significantly increased the decision-­making power of CMEA sessions.25 In 1959, representatives of CMEA countries signed the CMEA’s Statute in order to lay down the principles and forms of cooperation inside the CMEA. The meetings of country representatives were transformed into the Executive Committee 21  Henryk Róz˙ański, Spojrzenie na RWPG. Wspomnienia, Dokumenty, Refleksje. 1949–1988 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1990), 54. 22  Bethkenhagen and Machowski, Integration im Rat, 37–8. 23  Alexander Uschakow, ‘Probleme der Wirtschaftsintegration im RGW’, Aussenpolitik 23, no. 3 (1972): 148–58, here 150–1. 24  Some of these national representatives developed a sense of loyalty towards the CMEA, leading to conflicts with the national interests of their countries of origin. See Simon Godard, ‘Creative Tension: The Role of Conflict in Shaping Transnational Identity at Comecon’, Comparativ 27, no. 5/6 (2017): 65–83. 25  Jens Hacker, Alexander Uschakow, Die Integration Osteuropas 1961 bis 1965 (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1966), 135.

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in 1962. This became the decisive decision-making body, bringing together the deputy chairmen of each country in a Council of Ministers.26 Moreover, the modes of cooperation between the CMEA and other international economic organisations in the Eastern bloc were regulated. International economic organisations focused on specific tasks or branches and acted independently from the CMEA.  The first international economic organisations were the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the Organisation for Cooperation of Railways, both founded in 1956.27 At the beginning of the 1960s, a new wave of international economic organisations was established which likewise closely cooperated with the CMEA. Examples are the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, Intermetall and the bloc-wide United Electricity Network. From the 1970s, the number of international economic organisations increased significantly to more than 50.28 The First Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Nikita Khrushchev, eagerly supported the idea of an upgraded CMEA. In his eyes, the CMEA could become one of the core institutions of the communist world. Such a ‘super Gosplan’ could help to overcome distrust by increasing economic effectiveness and raising the standard of living in all member countries. The basic approach within the CMEA was to increase the economic specialisation to achieve higher rates of growth and to even out the considerable economic differences between CMEA countries. The modes of economic specialisation were fixed at the Basic Principles of International Socialist Division of Labour, ratified in 1962. Khrushchev’s attempt was also influenced by the integration efforts in Western Europe, where the European Economic Community (EEC) had been established in 1957 and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1959–60.29

 Korbonski, ‘Economic Integration’, 53.  For an in-depth analysis of the relations between the CMEA and the Organisation of Cooperation of Railways, see Falk Flade, ‘Beyond Socialist Camaraderie. Cross-Border Railway between German Democratic Republic, Poland and Soviet Union (1950s–60s)’, The Journal of Transport History 40, no. 2 (2019): 251–69. 28  Lothar Rüster, Internationale Ökonomische Organisationen der RGW-Länder. Dokumente (Berlin: Staatsverlag der DDR, 1985), 16. 29   Mikhail A.  Lipkin, ‘“Mirovoy Kooperativ Narodov”: Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi, kotoryy pytalsya postroit’ N. S. Khrushchev’, Novyy Istoricheskiy Vesnik, no. 4 (2017): 121–44, here 122–3. 26 27

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This meant, however, that all countries would have to hand over parts of their sovereignty with regard to national economic planning. In 1964, Romania put an end to Khrushchev’s attempts to turn the CMEA into a ‘super Gosplan’. In a famous letter, the Romanian government argued that economic planning constituted a core competence of national economic politics and, therefore, could not be ceded to a supranational organisation. Since the CMEA’s Statute guaranteed that all decisions had to be met with unanimity, a single country was able to block all fundamental decisions. In order to circumvent the deadlock, the so-called principle of interestedness was strengthened: if a country did not voice its interestedness in a matter, it was not able to block future decisions in this field.30 The Romanian blockade in 1964 revealed the dividing lines between the more industrialised CMEA countries like the Soviet Union, the GDR or Czechoslovakia, and the less industrialised countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, the latter of which feared getting trapped in their then agrarian stage of economic development. In the 1970s, the CMEA further extended its structures. The number of employees grew to more than 600. As a headquarters, a 33-storey building was erected in Moscow. Attempts to enact economic reforms in the Eastern bloc from the second half of the 1960s resulted in the so-­ called Complex Programme, ratified in 1971.31 The Complex Programme clearly favoured proven integration methods such as specialisation agreements and joint planning instead of highly disputed concepts like decentralised, market-determined cooperation, since such an approach would have endangered state monopoly over foreign trade. A focal point of the Complex Programme was the further development of production capacities in resource-rich countries to increase fuel, energy and raw material supplies. Energy-poor CMEA countries were meant to specialise in light and consumer goods industries, whereas extractive and heavy industries would be situated in the Soviet Union.32 For the first time, the Complex Programme officially used the word ‘integration’ in the context of cooperation between CMEA countries. And 30  Nikolaj Faddejew, Der Rat für Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe (Berlin: Die Wirtschaft, 1975), 51. 31  The official name was the ‘Complex Programme of Further Intensification and Perfection of Cooperation and the Development of Socialist Economic Integration amongst the Member Countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance’. 32  P.  Sydow et  al., Wirtschaftliches Wachstum europäischer RGW-Länder. Ziele  – Bedingungen – Aufgaben (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1981), 183–4.

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compared to the term used to define the process of cooperation among the six states of the EEC, where relations were considered to be unequal and unfair, the processes in the Eastern bloc were described by deploying the word ‘interdependency’ (vzaimozavisimos’).33 In the CMEA context, however, both words lacked precision. After all, the Complex Programme envisaged little more than a compromise between rather conservative CMEA countries like the Soviet Union and more reform-oriented ones like Czechoslovakia or Hungary. However, the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 had clearly shown the limits of the Soviet reform will. The Complex Programme failed to provide a comprehensive concept of integration. It remained vague and sketchy, especially regarding basic measures for how to coordinate a planned economy. In practice, specialisation agreements for certain goods remained the most important means of cooperation. Urgent questions like foreign trade pricing were postponed, although all parties were aware of the importance of this question.34 The Complex Programme also failed to reach some form of supranationality. As with target programmes and general agreements, decisions only became legally binding after intergovernmental decisions were reached.35 Close cooperation between CMEA countries was mainly based on joint projects, especially in the energy and raw materials sector.

The Energy Sector as a Main Field of Activity From the early 1950s, energy demand in Eastern Europe had started to increase. Industrialisation efforts focused on the extension of heavy industry at the expense of light industry and consumer goods. Energy-poor CMEA countries had to import increasing amounts of energy from abroad. However, they were not able or willing to diversify energy imports due to a lack of hard currency and the attraction of being able to pay for Soviet energy imports with so-called soft goods, usually machinery, not tradable on global markets due to the inferior characteristics of these oft-­ low quality products. On the other side, the Soviet Union possessed by far 33  Mikhail A.  Lipkin, Sovetskiy Soyuz i Evropeyskaya Integratsiya: Seredina 1940-kh  – Seredina 1960-kh (Moskva: Rossiyskaya Akademiya Nauk, 2011), 245–7. 34  Ahrens, Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe?, 232–3. 35   Alexander Uschakow, ‘Internationale Rohstoffabkommen im RGW’, in Gernot Gutmann, Karl C.  Thalheim and Wilhelm Wöhlke (eds.), Das Energieproblem in Ostmitteleuropa. Teil II: Energiepolitik und Energieverbund in den mitteleuropäischen RGWStaaten (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 1984), 93–113, here 97–8.

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the largest energy deposits in the Eastern bloc and had since the 1950s significantly extended its oil and gas production. It became the most important energy supplier for all CMEA countries bar Romania.36 Decision-makers welcomed the construction of energy infrastructure not only because of the economic advantages but also because it was regarded as the ultimate sign of progress and modernity. A notable example is the electrification plan of the State Commission for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO), initiated by Vladimir Lenin in 1920. Such large-scale projects later served as models and as a material basis for bloc cooperation.37 However, similar processes took place in Western Europe, too, where the Union for the Coordination of Production and Transmission of Electricity (UCPTE) had been established in 1951.38 One of the first Standing Commissions was dedicated to electricity matters. It was established in 1956 under the full name of ‘Standing Commission for the Exchange of Electric Energy and the Utilization of the Hydraulic Resources of the Danube’. Its task was to balance national energy sectors by interlinking them. In order to establish a transnational electricity infrastructure, a considerable planning effort had to be made to coordinate the construction of thermal power plants and hydropower plants at the Danube and other rivers. The Commission handed the relevant data over to the Soviet planning office, Gidroproekt, which had gathered experience during the construction of major hydroelectric projects in the Soviet Union since the 1930s.39 Collection and processing of national information were tasks handed over to another Soviet institution, Teploelektroproekt. In May 1959, the CMEA Session announced the plan to establish a bloc-wide electricity grid called ‘Mir’ (‘peace’). Since cooperation was most advanced here, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary and Poland were meant to constitute the core of the unified network. Bulgaria, 36  John M. Kramer, The Energy Gap in Eastern Europe (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), 12–3. 37  Klaus Gestwa, ‘“Energetische Brücken” und “Klimafabriken”. Das energetische Weltbild der Sowjetunion’, Osteuropa 54, no. 9–10 (2004): 14–38, here 25–6. 38  On the electricity-based integration process in Western Europe see Vincent Lagendijk, Electrifying Europe. The Power of Europe in the Construction of Electricity Networks (Amsterdam: Aksant 2008). 39  Russian State Archive of the Economy (Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Ekonomiki, hereafter RGAE), f. 561, op. 1, d. 23, l. 191–2, ‘Protokol 7. zasedaniya sessii SEV’, Berlin, 18–25 May 1956.

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Romania and the Soviet Union would be linked in subsequent years. It was expected that by 1965, all Eastern Bloc countries should be connected by cross-border transmission lines and their grids fully synchronised.40 In order to coordinate increasing cross-border electricity supplies, the Standing Commission for Electric Energy established the Central Dispatching Organisation (CDO) in 1962. Its headquarters were situated in Prague due to Czechoslovakia’s important role as a transit country for electricity deliveries as well as its technological capabilities. A directorate including experts from all seven member countries was in charge of the operative work. General decisions were made at the CDO council including representatives from member countries. The CDO had some room for independent manoeuvre. Its instructions regarding cross-border electricity exchanges were binding for national dispatchers. However, it was not authorised to interfere in internal questions or decisions of the various national electricity grids.41 In the 1970s, the CMEA developed ambitious plans for the further extension of the Mir grid. In this period, the Standing Commission for Electric Energy was headed by Piotr Neporozhniy, who between 1962 and 1985 was also Soviet Minister for Power and Electrification.42 A ‘General Scheme for the Long-Term Development of Mir’, approved in July 1976, foresaw the construction of larger production units and transmission lines to increase the overall capability of the network and meet constantly growing energy demands.43 Nuclear power plants (NPPs) were meant to form the core of the network. Soviet planning and construction institutions such as Atommash played a decisive role in their construction.44 Next to 40  RGAE, f. 561, op- 25, d. 13, l. 50, ‘Doklad po ob”edineniyu energeticheskikh sistem i vzaimnoy peredache elektroenergii dlya luchshego obespecheniya potrebnostey evropeyskikh stran narodnoy demokratii’, undated. 41   Dieter Mentz and Joachim Pfeffer, Die rechtliche Regelung der internationalen Energiebeziehungen der RGW-Länder (Munich: Saur, 1982), 92–3. 42  See Pyotr Neporozhniy, ‘Rol Postoyannoy Komissii SEV po Elektroenergii v Razvitii Elektroenergetiki Stran Sotsialisticheskogo Sodruzhestva’, Dostizheniya i Perspektivy, no. 6 (1979): 3–12. 43  The Federal Archive Berlin (Bundesarchiv Berlin, hereafter BArch), DC 20/22109, 2, Protokoll der XXX, RGW-Ratstagung. Anlage 3: ‘Generalschema der Perspektiventwicklung der Vereinigten Elektroenergiesysteme der Mitgliedsländer des RGW und Fragen der Zusammenarbeit mit den Festlegungen des Komplexprogramms, einschließlich der entsprechenden Zusammenarbeit mit dem Elektroenergiesystem der SFRJ’, Berlin, 7–9 July 1976. 44  Paul Josephson, Red Atom: Russia’s Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today (New York: Freeman, 2000), 40–1.

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the individual construction of national NPPs, CMEA member countries ̌ planned the joint construction of two NPPs in Ukraine (NPP Khmelnitskiy and NPP Yuzhnoukrainsk). Their main aim was to supply neighbouring CMEA countries with additional electricity. Consequently, a stronger cross-border infrastructure was necessary and a massive network of long-­ distance transmission lines with a voltage of 750 kilovolts was envisioned. Both NPPs were finished in the 1980s, but only three out of a dozen long-­ distance transmission lines were ever completed.45 With regard to the oil sector, a fundamental change of production and mobility habits had emerged in the 1950s and led to constantly increasing demands for liquid hydrocarbons. By the end of that decade, the Soviet leadership had initiated the so-called chemicalisation campaign with heavy investments in oil production, refining and further application in agriculture and transport. In 1963, Nikita Khrushchev gave a euphoric speech at the plenum of the CPSU’s Central Committee welcoming these developments: Communism—that is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country plus the chemicalisation of the national economy. The chemical industry currently receives so much attention, because the usage of chemical products and synthetic material enables us to conduct fundamental qualitative changes in central spheres of material production.46

The Druzhba crude oil pipeline formed the basis for cross-border oil transport in Eastern Europe. After its completion in 1964, it was the world’s largest crude oil pipeline. The planning procedure strongly resembles the approach regarding the Mir network. At the behest of the ninth CMEA Session, the Chairman of the Standing Commission for Oil and Gas Industry, Mihai Florescu, coordinated the planning process. He set up the ‘Work Group for the Construction of long-distance Pipelines to transport Oil from the Soviet Union to Hungary, the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia’.47 The Moscow-based project office, Giprotruboprovod, 45  Yuriy Savenko and M.  Samkov, Ob”edinennye Elektroenergeticheskie Sistemy StranChlenov SEV (Moskva: Sovet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi, 1983), 29–30. 46   Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst/Neues Deutschland, ‘Kommunismus ist auch Sowjetmacht plus Chemisierung’, Neues Deutschland, 10 December 1963, 5. 47  RGAE, f. 4372, op. 77, d. 302, l. 231–2, Materialy SEV, ‘AzNIINP i drugikh organǐ ̌ zatsiy po voprosu stroitelstva magistralnykh nefteprovodov dlya perekachki nefti iz SSSR v ̌ Vengriyu, GDR, Polshu i Chekhoslovakiyu, undated.

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processed the data gathered by national offices in participating countries and prepared a first draft. This plan was discussed, adapted and adopted as the ‘general scheme for the construction of pipelines’.48 It foresaw the construction of refineries specialised in processing Soviet crude oil from the Volga oil fields.49 The construction of the pipeline was based on biand multilateral agreements, but every country conducted construction work on its own territory. Due to insufficient pipe production in the Eastern bloc, the original plan was to import large-diameter pipes from Western countries, mainly West Germany. As a consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the construction of the Berlin Wall, however, countries from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) issued a pipe embargo in 1962.50 Consequently, the pipeline was completed in autumn 1964 with a delay of around nine months.51 Due to growing energy demand, the extension of the Druzhba pipeline at the beginning of the 1970s included not only a second line but also further links to refineries, oil ports and neighbouring pipelines. The result was a massive oil transport system which connected almost all Eastern European countries.52 The construction of the Druzhba network had far-reaching knock-on effects not only for crude oil importers like Poland and the GDR but also for the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had to decide how to divide energy deliveries between domestic demand, exports to CMEA countries and Western markets. From an economic standpoint, exports to Western markets were the most attractive since Soviet oil was paid in hard currencies. The need to maintain exports to CMEA partners were, by contrast, based on political arguments. Cheap energy was an important way to ̌ 48  RGAE, f. 561, op. 13, d. 35, l. 14, ‘Generalnaya skhema/osnovnye polozheniya ̌ stroitelstva nefteprovodov’, undated. ̌ ̌ 49  RGAE, f. 4372, op. 77, d. 302, l. 245, ‘Doklad o stroitelstve magistralnykh nefteprovodov dlya perekachki nefti iz SSSR v strany-uchastnitsy SEV’, undated (c. 1958). 50  For general information about the pipe embargo see Angela Stent, From Embargo to Ostpolitik. The Political Economy of West German-Soviet Relations, 1955–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 51  State Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyy Arkhiv Rossiyskoy Federatsii, hereafter GARF), f. 5446, op. 98, d. 624, l. 93–4, ‘O perenesenii na 1964 god sroka vvoda v deystvie chasti nefteprovoda Druzhba’, Moscow, 5 April 1963. 52  For more information see Falk Flade, ‘The Druzhba Pipeline’, in Jeronim Perović (ed.), Cold War Energy. A Transnational History of Soviet Oil and Gas (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 321–44.

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stabilise Eastern bloc economies and, therefore, their governments.53 Since the chronic shortage of convertible currencies did not allow for large energy imports from outside the bloc, the Soviet Union’s role as the main supplier became more important. In Poland, the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the Druzhba pipeline system changed national energy mixes towards import dependency. In the 1950s, these countries had still relied overwhelmingly on domestic hard and brown coal. In comparison to Western Europe, however, where similar substitution processes from coal to oil occurred, in CMEA countries the share of solid fossil fuels remained high and again increased after the first oil crisis.54 The establishment of a transnational gas network started in 1960s and was reinforced by the discovery of huge natural gas deposits in the southern Ural Mountains.55 Due to increasing Soviet pressure on its CMEA allies to scale up investments into the Soviet energy sector, new modes of cooperation had to be developed. Already in 1966, Soviet economists had made this argument and were in favour of closer coordination of the economics.56 The fact that Soviet oil and gas production became more costly by moving to the west of Siberia made this argument even more pressing, and involved actors were fully aware of the urgency of reaching agreement on this issue.57 The new form of cooperation which emerged came in the form of financial support for construction projects in other CMEA countries. This happened the first time in 1966, when Czechoslovakia granted the Soviet 53  William M. Reisinger, Energy and the Soviet Bloc. Alliance Politics after Stalin (Ithaca IL: Cornell University Press, 1992), 19–20. 54  John P.  Hardt, ‘Soviet Energy Policy in Eastern Europe’, in Sarah Meiklejohn Terry (ed.), Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 198–9. For the GDR see André Steiner, ‘“Common Sense is Necessary”: East German Reactions to the Oil Crises of the 1970s’, Historical Social Research 39, no. 150 (2014): 231–50, here 245. 55  For an analysis of Soviet politics regarding the domestic gas sector see: Thane Gustafson, The Soviet Gas Campaign. Politics and Policy in Soviet Decisionmaking (Santa Monica CA: Rand, 1983). 56   Oleg Bogomolov, ‘Aktual’nye Problemy Ekonomicheskogo Sotrudnichestva Sotsialisticheskikh Stran’, Mirovaya Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, no. 5 (1966): 15–27, here 19. 57  Already before the global oil crises, this issue became known as the ‘fuel and energy problem’ in the Eastern bloc. See for example Ilya Dudinskiy, ‘Toplivno-syr’evaya Problema Stran SEV i Puti ee Resheniya’, Voprosy Ekonomiki, no. 4 (1966): 84–94; Igor D. Kozlov and Yelena K. Shmakova, Sotrudnichestvo stran-chlenov SEV v Energetike (Moskva: Nauka, 1973), 3; Faddejew, Rat für Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe, 9; Sydow et  al., Wirtschaftliches Wachstum, 182–3.

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Union credit totalling 633 million roubles for the construction of the Druzhba pipeline as well as other pipelines in Central Asia, which could feed additional crude oil from the fields on the Mangyshlak peninsula into the Druzhba network.58 In exchange for the loan, Czechoslovakia received increased quantities of oil deliveries from the Soviet Union. The GDR reached a similar agreement with the Soviet Union in 1967.59 Another new form of cooperation was the posting of foreign workers on a large scale. Several thousand workers from participating CMEA countries were sent to the Soviet Union to construct the Soyuz gas pipeline, stretching for 2500 km from the southern Urals to the Soviet Union’s border with the West.60 After the construction of the gas pipeline, companies from other Eastern bloc countries—such as the Polish enterprise Energopol—became increasingly involved in pipeline construction in the Soviet Union.61 Such activities, however, were not supported by a change of legal frameworks regarding the foreign trade monopoly, since these companies were not able to act independently from state authorities. If we are to view this through Balassa’s definition of integration, this cannot be interpreted as a measure ‘to abolish discrimination between economic units belonging to different national states’. As in the case of Mir and Druzhba, CMEA institutions played a central role in pushing forward the planning process for the Soyuz project. The CMEA Committee for Cooperation in the Field of Planning drafted a proposal for the joint construction of the pipeline, approved at a meeting of the chairmen of the central planning agencies of CMEA countries in April 1974. The general agreement was signed at the CMEA Session of June 1974 by the heads of governments of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union.62 Again, Soviet offices like Soyuzgazproekt or Yuzhnyygiprogaz took over the technical 58  RGAE, f. 4372, op. 81, d. 2429, l. 145–6, Pis’mo P. Galonskogo dlya A. Ryabenko, Moscow, 11 July 1967. 59  Uschakow, ‘Internationale Rohstoffabkommen im RGW’, 96. 60  The following numbers of employees were deployed in the Soviet Union—GDR: 5000; Poland: 4250; Hungary: 2200; Czechoslovakia: 2100; Bulgaria: 200. See Viktor Petrenko, ‘Od Orenburga do Zapadnoy Granitsy SSSR’, Ekonomicheskoe Sotrudnichestvo Stran-Chlenov SEV, no. 5 (1977): 94–9, here 97. 61  See Bogdan Wos’, ‘Energopol na Trasse’, Ekonomicheskoe Sotrudnichestvo Stran-Chlenov SEV, no. 3 (1984): 18–20. 62  John B.  Hannigan, The Orenburg Natural Gas Project and Fuel-Energy Balances in Eastern Europe (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1980), 274–5.

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planning of the project. The management was handed over to an intergovernmental commission, including high-ranking representatives from participating countries. It negotiated basic questions concerning technical characteristics of the pipeline, the organisational relationship between the involved construction organisations, and the placement and payment of foreign construction workers in the Soviet Union, as well overseeing the overall financial elements of the project.63 With regard to purchases of Western equipment, cooperation between CMEA countries reached a new level. The inability of Eastern bloc economies to provide large-diameter pipes, compressors and machinery made Western imports crucial.64 Therefore, new institutions such as the International Investment Bank with headquarters in Moscow were established to achieve the most favourable conditions for credits and purchases in the West.65 The Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade organised the purchase in cooperation with other state-owned organisations like Promsyr’yoimport. The Soyuz pipeline was a flagship project of the Complex Programme and of SEI, both aiming at a deeper division of labour between CMEA countries. In his speech at the pipeline’s opening in 1979, the new General Secretary of the CPSU’s Central Committee, Leonid Brezhnev, described the project in the following way: This grand project is one of the most convincing examples for the development of new modes of cooperation between socialist countries to solve important economic problems on the basis of equality and mutual advantage. By implementing the party conference resolutions of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, which were aiming to deepen the Socialist economic

̌ 63  RGAE, f. 302, op. 2, d. 1312, l. 8, ‘Proekt polozheniya o Mezhpravitelstvennoy Komissii po sotrudnichestve v osvoenii orenburgskogo gazokondensatnogo mestorozhdeniya i ̌ ̌ stroitelstve magistralnogo gazoprovoda Orenburg-zapadnaya granitsa SSSR’, undated. 64  A detailed analysis of East-West cooperation and the evolving mutual dependencies in Per Högselius, Red Gas: Russia and the Origins of European Energy Dependence (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 65  The IIB’s main task was to promote economic integration among CMEA countries by offering loans—in the form of transferable roubles and hard currency—for investment projects in the Eastern Bloc. See David Stone, ‘CMEA’s International Investment Bank and the Crisis of Developed Socialism’, Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 3 (2008): 48–77, here 48.

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integration, you have constructed with your unselfish work the largest gas chemical complex in Europe and a technically unique gas transport system.66

This framing highlights that the project had a strong ideological component. Pipelines and other cross-border energy infrastructures put into practice the idea of an integrated, entangled bloc-wide economy.67 Technology as a symbol of integration and progress was widespread in the Soviet Union. The technology-based linking of CMEA member countries is a good example of the ‘hidden integration’ in Eastern Europe. The extension of energy infrastructures over a period of several decades is one of the few examples of where integration measures were successfully implemented. The main reason for this is the fact that its realisation was in the interest of all those countries participating in the scheme.

Intra-bloc Energy Trade and the Global Oil Crises Following, in particular, the first oil price increase of 1973, the Soviet position vis-à-vis energy importing countries hardened still further due to exploding oil prices on global markets. This allowed the Soviet Union to use energy as a bargaining tool. In 1974, the Soviet Union gradually pressed for a change in intra-bloc trade arrangements for its own benefit. In the years after 1959, foreign trade prices in the Eastern bloc had been based on the so-called Bucharest Principle. This meant that the foreign trade price for a specific good was premised on its average world market price over the previous five-year period. After an intense bargaining process between the Soviet Union and its socialist trade partners in Eastern Europe, the so-called Moscow Principle was introduced in January 1975.68 It significantly improved the Soviet Union’s terms-of-trade vis-à-vis Eastern Europe by adapting oil prices annually and not every five years. This brought the intra-bloc oil prices closer to global prices and, therefore, reduced the Soviet opportunity costs for selling crude oil to its socialist trade partners. Western experts interpreted the Soviet opportunity costs 66  Leonid Breshnew, ‘Glänzendes Zeugnis des Internationalismus’, Aussenhandel, no. 9 (1979): 27. 67   Ulrich Best, ‘Arbeit, Internationalismus und Energie. Zukunftsvisionen in den Gaspipelineprojekten des RGW’, in Martin Schulze-Wessel and Christiane Brenner (eds.), Zukunftsvorstellungen und staatliche Planung im Sozialismus (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010): 137–57, here 146. 68  Ahrens, Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe?, 305–6.

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as Soviet subsidies or ‘empire costs’ to maintain the Eastern bloc.69 At the same time, oil-importing countries managed to alleviate the most severe short-term consequences of their full adaptation to Soviet oil prices and to maintain the system of paying for Soviet energy imports with soft goods.70 Consequently, the Moscow Principle can be interpreted less as a policy dictated by Moscow than as a compromise, since the Soviet Union’s attempt to raise quality standards for import goods failed, whereas its satellites managed to prevent reform of CMEA institutions.71 Due to the Moscow Principle, intra-bloc oil prices reached 86 per cent of world market prices at the time of the second oil crisis in 1979. After the Iranian Revolution, this gap increased once again. As a response, in June 1980 the Soviet leadership froze its oil exports to CMEA countries.72 And in late 1981 it announced plans to cut back annual crude oil exports by 10 per cent. These measures were related to the increasing financial problems of oil-importing CMEA countries, which had accumulated a trade deficit of 13 billion transferable roubles, the nonconvertible currency used in intra-bloc trade.73 The Soviet Union was itself indebted to the West due to technology and grain imports, exacerbated by the fact that it urgently needed additional hard-currency earnings.74 Indeed, crude oil exports to member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reached a new peak of 66 million tons in 1982, compared with 54 million tons one year earlier.75 As a result, the Soviet cut-back further aggravated the economic situation of oil-importing CMEA countries. A new energy policy had to be implemented which shifted away from oil. Other energy sources like domestic brown coal and nuclear energy, as well as energy-saving measures, suddenly became more important as a result. Yet overall energy consumption in the East further increased in this period, whereas it  Bunce, The Empire strikes back, 17.  Suvi Kansikas, ‘Calculating the Burden of Empire: Soviet Oil, East-West Trade, and the End of the Socialist Bloc’, in Perović (ed.), Cold War Energy, 345–369, here 348–9. 71  Stone, Strategy and Conflict, 8. See also Lipkin, ‘Kooperativ Narodov’, 134; Herzog, ‘Bargaining Power’, 16–7. 72  BArch/DC 20/5142/2, ‘Bericht über die XXXIV. Tagung des RGW’, Prague, 17 to 19 June 1980. 73  Jochen Bethkenhagen, ‘Oil and Natural Gas in CMEA Intra-Block Trade’, Economic Bulletin 20, no. 12 (1984): 5–12, here 11. 74  Jeremy Russell, ‘Energy in the Soviet Union: Problems for Comecon?’, World Economy  4, no. 2–3 (1981): 291–314, here 307. 75  Bethkenhagen, ‘Oil and Natural Gas’, 11. 69 70

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stagnated in the West.76 The Soviet step to cut back oil deliveries to other CMEA member countries fundamentally contradicted the definition of integration, proposed by the East German Economic Encyclopaedia, since this measure considerably hampered further economic growth of Eastern European plan economies.

Conclusions In the course of the CMEA’s existence, modes of cooperation between member countries changed significantly. Soviet exploitation during Stalinism gave way to more equal cooperation after 1953. Khrushchev’s attempt to integrate socialist countries by transforming the CMEA into a ‘super-Gosplan’ failed, however, due to Romania’s resistance in 1964. Later that same decade the Soviet conception of the CMEA changed once again, moving from promoting multilateral approaches to developing a foreign trade policy focused on profitability.77 Already well before this, the CMEA had become an instrument for its member countries to advance particular interests and regain and retain sovereignty: the principle of unanimity was in this sense of fundamental significance for the CMEA’s work. Consequently, supranationalism in the form of a CMEA with decision-­ making power failed because it was not in the interest of all member countries. However, other more successful forms of cooperation did materialise. This was most clearly the case with transnational energy infrastructure, where the CMEA was vital as platform to plan and coordinate. From an ideological point of view, the building of transnational energy networks was presented as a stimulus to economic development, modernisation and international unification. The naming of important cross-border infrastructure projects such as ‘Mir’ (‘peace’), ‘Druzhba’ (‘friendship’) or ‘Soyuz’ (‘union’) points to this fact. The Complex Programme and SEI spurred joint planning of large-scale infrastructure projects in the 1970s. Despite an increasing energy dependency of importing countries, the realisation of cross-border energy infrastructures was in the interest of all participating countries. Energy was a major means to stabilise socialist regimes in 76  István Dobozi, ‘Policy Responses to the Energy Crisis. East and West’, ACES Bulletin 23, no. 1 (1981): 25–66, here 64–5. 77  Erik Radisch, ‘The Struggle of the Soviet Conception of Comecon, 1953–1975’, Comparativ 27, no. 5/6 (2017): 26–47, here 27.

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Eastern Europe, while imports from world markets became ever more expensive. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to argue that the Eastern European energy sector is one of the few examples, where (technology-­ based) integration was successful because this was in the interest of all participating CMEA countries. In other fields, however, the outcomes did not match expectations. The reason for this was not a lack of ambition, but rather the malfunctioning of fundamental mechanisms such as foreign trade pricing and monopoly, and commodity and currency inconvertibility.78 Neither of the definitions for (economic) integration proposed in the introduction fully applies to the processes in the Eastern bloc. No ‘measures to abolish discrimination between economic units belonging to different national states’ were implemented due to the foreign trade monopoly of individual CMEA countries. ‘Mutual complementation’, ‘high efficiency’ or ‘necessary economic growth’, as proposed by the East German Economic Encyclopaedia, were not reached either, not least in the 1980s. Due to the lack of qualitative criteria, the definition of ‘hidden integration’ as proposed by Misa and Schot comes closest to describing what happened in the Eastern bloc. Energy infrastructures became increasingly interlinked, and artefacts, systems and knowledge were to a certain degree circulated and appropriated in individual CMEA countries.79 The swift dissolution of CMEA which had existed for more than 40 years probably does more than anything to highlight the central role of the Soviet Union as well as intra-bloc energy trade in this integration endeavour. At the 45th CMEA Session in January 1990, the Soviet Union announced to switch intra-bloc payments for Soviet energy exports from soft goods to hard currency from the beginning of 1991. These unilateral measures were one of the main causes of the collapse of the CMEA.80 In the late 1980s, the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev had recognised that existing forms of intra-bloc trade were no longer affordable. Without the lure of cheap Soviet energy supplies, the CMEA was simply not attractive for its member countries. The swift breakup of this international organisation, moreover, highlights why the Soviet Union never fully 78  Jozef M.  Brabant, Socialist Economic Integration: Aspects of Contemporary Economic Problems in Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 298. 79  Nuclear energy is a good example here, see for instance Ivaylo Hristov, The Communist Nuclear Era: Bulgarian Atomic Community during the Cold War, 1944–1986, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014). 80  Stone, Strategy and Conflict, 227.

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employed its leverage as the most important energy supplier. As long as it was aiming to hold the Eastern bloc together, the use of the ‘energy weapon’ would have considerably destabilised socialist regimes in CMEA countries. Despite its failure, the CMEA was an important attempt at integrating some of the countries of (Eastern) Europe, and deserves to be included within the broader history of European integration. Furthermore, the CMEA’s legacy in the form of energy infrastructures remained long after the organisation itself had collapsed: quite the contrary in fact, as energy dependency still impacts the policies of Central and Eastern European countries today.81 Remarkable similarities can also be found between historical and current integration projects in Eastern Europe. Russia re-­ established a system of preferential prices for allies in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).82 Today’s Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), discussed in this book by Anna Lowry, likewise tries to establish common energy markets, although this has the added requirement of taking into account diverging interests of energy exporters like Russia with energy importers such as Belarus or Armenia. Even so, to better understand these present-day integration processes already well underway in different parts of Europe one would do well to revisit the historical precedents from which they largely derive.

81  Margarita M.  Balmaceda, ‘The Fall of the Soviet Union and the Legacies of Energy Dependencies in Eastern Europe’, in Perović (ed.), Cold War Energy, 401–420, here 407. 82  Stacy Closson, ‘A Comparative Analysis on Energy Subsidies in Soviet and Russian Policy’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 44, no. 4 (2011): 343–56, here 348.

CHAPTER 9

Industrial Policy and Technological Cooperation in the EAEU: The Case of Eurasian Technology Platforms Anna Lowry

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is a regional organisation formally agreed in 2011 and which since 2015 has developed into a fully fledged economic union.1 Its goals are to create a single market for goods, services, capital and labour; facilitate intraregional economic ties among its members; modernise their economies; and improve their global competitiveness. Currently the EAEU includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation. But its origins lie in the Soviet era and the ‘civilized divorce’ of the former Soviet republics in the early 1990s.2 Indeed, the subsequent history of post-Soviet integration shows persistent attempts by politicians and policymakers to preserve the critical elements of the economic, commercial and infrastructural links that they 1  Evgeny Vinokurov, ‘Eurasian Economic Union: Current State and Preliminary Results’, Russian Journal of Economics 3, no 1 (2017): 54–70. 2  Ibid., 56.

A. Lowry (*) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_9

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had developed during the Cold War.3 Several ‘false starts’ did admittedly dent initial attempts to launch economic integration.4 Even so, in 1995 Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus announced plans to negotiate their first customs union treaty and were later joined by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in forming a much broader Eurasian Economic Community. Within just five years the majority of these countries chose to formalise a treaty that would transform the Community into a Union and launch what became known as the EAEU.5 The relevance of the European Union (EU) model in the institutional design of Eurasian integration has been underscored in statements made by high-profile policymakers and has been extensively studied by scholars.6 This literature finds that the EU served as a major reference point in efforts to overcome those early failures to establish a new integration regime in the Eurasian space.7 The Eurasian Economic Commission (EUREC)—the EAEU’s executive body—is for instance styled on the EU’s Commission, not least because it has notable supranational features.8 The ministerial Supreme Eurasian Economic Council also bears resemblance to the EU’s Council of Ministers. And some of the more specific policies and competences of the EAEU also closely echo those within the EU. In the area of industrial cooperation, for example, Russian technology platforms (RTPs)—research and development partnerships between businesses,  Evgeny Vinokurov (ed.), Evraziyskiy ekonomicheskiy soyuz (St. Petersburg: EDB Centre for Integration Studies, 2017), 14. 4  The main integration ‘false starts’ were the 1995 customs union plan and the 2003 Single Economic Space idea. The customs union formed by Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia in 1995 did not work in practice, while the Single Economic Space launched by Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine in 2003 ended abruptly with the Orange Revolution of 2004. See Vinokurov, ‘Eurasian Economic Union’, 56. 5  Elena Ustyuzhanina, ‘The Eurasian Union and Global Value Chains’, European Politics and Society 17, no. 1 (2016): 35–45, here 38. 6  ‘The EU template’ is generally associated with ‘deep’ economic integration through high institutionalisation, extensive ‘pooling’ of sovereignty and reliance on binding ‘hard law’ commitments. See Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, ‘European Union Emulation in the Design of Integration’, in David Lane and Vsevolod Samokhvalov (eds.), The Eurasian Project and Europe: Regional Discontinuities and Geopolitics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 135–52. 7  Ibid., 140. 8  The Eurasian Economic Commission is usually referred to by both its participants and scholars as the EEC, but since in this volume that acronym is reserved for the European Economic Community, EUREC is used here instead. 3

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s­ cientists and the state, tasked with commercialising technological discoveries and innovations—which themselves provided the basis for the later creation of Eurasian technology platforms (ETPs), were modelled on their EU equivalents.9 However, this emulation of EU institutional features has always been highly selective. In particular, the EAEU departs from the EU model significantly on issues of sovereignty. That its aim is to ‘consolidate national sovereignty and not to supersede it’ suggests that the EAEU is closer in form to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) than to the EU.10 For instance, the decisions of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council and the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council—the top governing bodies of the EAEU—are made on a consensual basis and are implemented by member states in accordance with their national laws. This means that the decisions of both councils require ratification at the national level and, consequently, do not take precedence over national legislation.11 In addition to these specific institutional features, the EAEU is distinctive in several other respects. First, the EAEU countries are regarded as transition economies still undergoing a complex process of transformation from centrally planned to market economies.12 Second, the dependence of EAEU members on commodity exports demarcates Eurasian from EU integration and carries implications for the formulation of a common trade policy and the building of common markets.13 Third, Eurasian integration is highly asymmetric, with Russia being the dominant party in terms of

9   Irina G.  Dezhina, ‘Technology Platforms in Russia: A Catalyst for Connecting Government, Science, and Business?’, Triple Helix 1, no. 6 (2014): 1–10. 10  Michael Leifer, ‘The ASEAN Peace Process: A Category Mistake’, The Pacific Review 12, no. 1 (1999): 25–38, here 28; Richard Sakwa, ‘Challenges of Eurasian Integration’, in Piotr Dutkiewicz and Richard Sakwa (eds.), Eurasian Integration  – The View from Within (London: Routledge, 2015), 12–30, here 19. 11  While the original draft of the EAEU Treaty specified that the Union’s legal acts would be subject to direct application on the territory of the EAEU, many sensitive provisions were omitted in the process of drafting the final version of the Treaty. See Vinokurov, Evraziyskiy ekonomicheskiy soyuz, 85–6. 12  Martin Myant and Jan Drahokoupil, Transition Economies: Political Economy in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia (San Francisco, CA: Wiley, 2011); Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan, Transition Economies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018). 13  Russia and Kazakhstan largely specialise in the export of oil, gas and metals. This factor also indirectly affects other EAEU member states through their economic ties with Russia and Kazakhstan. See Vinokurov, Evraziyskiy ekonomicheskiy soyuz, 33.

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territory, population, gross domestic product (GDP) and military power.14 And fourth, the point often emphasised by critics of Eurasian integration is the undemocratic nature of the political systems of the five EAEU member states. For such detractors, these authoritarian features raise questions about the commitment and capacity of the EAEU’s member states to pursue any genuinely deep economic and political integration agenda when it would imply having to accept rules-based constraints on government behaviour. Quite apart from being different from the EU, the EAEU might reasonably be categorised as a somewhat irrelevant or unimportant international organisation (IO). Against this backdrop, this chapter focuses on the formulation and implementation of a common industrial and innovation policy as an emergent area of cooperation among EAEU member states. In so doing, the first section offers an overview of the extant research on the EAEU. As we shall discover, scholars have examined its political and economic origins, its institutions and its progress to date, but tend ultimately to echo these more negative assessments of the organisation. Critiquing this literature, however, opens the possibility in the second section of the chapter to devise a new, more suitable approach to the study of Eurasian integration that moves away from benchmarking the EAEU against the EU in the way outlined above. The latter sections of the chapter then hone in on technological and industrial cooperation in the EAEU as case studies to test this framing, paying particular attention to the emergence and implementation of Eurasian technology platforms. The objective is to highlight how ETPs are indicative—contrary to the arguments of many authors—of the genuine and significant level of cooperation that has been achieved within the EAEU.  The chapter consequently has implications both for our understanding of the EAEU itself and for our use of ‘integration’ as a term often solely associated with the European Union. At a more methodological level, the chapter offers a reminder that those wishing to better understand and examine IOs like the EAEU may need to go ‘beyond Brussels’ and adopt a different conceptual lens to that usually employed when examining the politics and policies of the EU.

14  Julian Cooper, ‘The Development of Eurasian Economic Integration’, in Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk (eds.), Eurasian Economic Integration: Law, Policy and Politics (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2013), 15–33, here 32.

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What Explains the EAEU? The EAEU is not a topic short of scholarly attention: we know a good deal about its political and economic origins, its institutions and its progress to date. Many have underlined the prevalence of geopolitical drivers behind Eurasian integration, specifically Russia’s motives. In this regard, Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk have argued that Russia’s primary interest in Eurasian integration has been to strengthen its own global influence. Other member states, it is argued, had diverse reasons to engage but they, like Russia, are said to have been largely uninterested in pursuing deeper economic integration in a regional context.15 Others by contrast have prioritised economic explanations, describing the fiscal benefits of the EAEU primarily in terms of improved trade facilitation and the reduction of non-­ tariff barriers. These, in turn, are deemed to have been necessary in order to offset the trade diversion costs for the more open economies of Armenia, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic, who must live with a common external tariff that favours Russia’s tariff structure.16 An extension to this economic explanation is that Eurasian integration has focused on the capacity of EAEU members to undertake regulatory and institutional modernisation, typically benchmarked against ‘an EU template’ of ‘deep’ economic integration through very high institutionalisation,17 or, alternatively, some measures of ‘good governance’ such as, for example, the World Bank governance indicators.18 All these approaches arguably tend to define both political and economic rationales for Eurasian integration too narrowly. Seeing the EAEU as a Russia-led project that serves its geopolitical ends does not advance our understanding of the economic foundations of power in today’s

15  Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, ‘The Eurasian Economic Union: Deals, Rules and the Exercise of Power’, Chatham House Research Paper (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2017). 16  David G. Tarr, ‘The Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and the Kyrgyz Republic: Can It Succeed Where Its Predecessor Failed?’, Eastern European Economics 54, no. 1 (2016): 1–22. 17  Additionally, institutional features such as democratic accountability, transparency and public engagement have become integral to the EU model. See Dragneva and Wolczuk, ‘European Union Emulation in the Design of Integration’, 136. 18  Richard Connolly, ‘Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union and the WTO’, in Dragneva and Wolczuk (eds.), Eurasian Economic Integration, 61–78.

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‘hyperglobalised’ world.19 Conceptualising the economic benefits of integration predominantly in terms of trade facilitation or ‘improving exchange’, meanwhile, overlooks the more complex production side of development.20 And benchmarking the Eurasian integration processes against the EU ‘golden standard’21 produces unrealistic expectations of how regional integration should work as opposed to developing insights into the real economic and political motives and drivers of integration that might differ from those of the EU. It thus results precisely in the kind of teleological and normative perspective that this volume seeks to challenge. If we hope to examine how the EAEU works in practice, putting industrial policy front and centre makes much sense. In particular, an analysis of the production-side of development is far more profitable than exploring the type and degree of cooperation the EAEU has achieved through the guise of trade facilitation and the reduction of non-tariff barriers. This is consistent with EAEU legislative norms and practices as well as broader theoretical literature on economic development. The EAEU’s founding treaty itself established industrial policy as the main framework within which would fit the development and implementation of trade, customs and tariffs, and competition policies, as well as policies in the field of public procurement, technical regulation, business development, and transport and infrastructure.22 With ideas drawn from economic development literature in mind, it is also possible to argue that upgrading the production structure toward higher productivity activities does not happen ‘by itself’ or as a result of closer integration into the international economy. Instead, available evidence suggests that such upgrading typically requires a coordinated catch-up strategy on the part of the state.23 In other words,

19  Hyperglobalisation is associated with very fast acceleration of trade since the mid-1980s, which is increasingly uncoupled from growth of global output. These trends have been linked to the growing influence of financial markets and the general ‘metamorphosis of trade’ that coincided with the beginning of the Uruguay Round. See UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2018: Power, Platforms and the Free Trade Delusion (New York and Geneva: United Nations, 2018), 40. 20  Robert H. Wade, ‘The Developmental State: Dead or Alive?’ Development and Change 49, no. 2 (2018): 518–46. 21  Dragneva and Wolczuk, ‘European Union Emulation in the Design of Integration’, 145. 22  EUREC, ‘Obshchie svedeniya po formirovaniyu osnovnykh napravleniy promyshlennogo sotrudnichestva’ (2019), available at http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/act/ prom_i_agroprom/dep_prom/Pages/default.aspx (last accessed 14 January 2020). 23  Wade, ‘The Developmental State’.

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‘governments can usefully push firms to diversify and upgrade their production’.24 For historical and economic reasons, Russia has played a leading role in shaping industrial policy in the EAEU. At the same time, the preferences of other member states and existing cooperative ties have continued significantly to impact the directions and forms of industrial cooperation in the EAEU. The asymmetry of Eurasian integration does not preclude the emergence of mutually beneficial economic cooperation and strengthening of existing industrial and technological ties within the EAEU. In fact, such regional cooperation might be the best chance that the EAEU countries have at expanding activities with greater added value, thus boosting overall productivity and income growth. As the economic opportunities associated with integration into international production networks continue to shrink due to a prolonged period of slow growth in developed countries, the importance of regional South-South and East-South production networks is increasing.25 This gives additional reason to take new forms of regional integration and industrial cooperation emerging in Eurasia seriously while paying close attention to the extent these countries rebalance their growth strategies toward domestic and regional demand. Although there has been a global revival of interest in industrial policy since the global financial crisis, this has yet to be reflected in the emergent literature on the EAEU.26 Nonetheless, a growing number of studies point to a complex interaction of political and economic factors driving Eurasian integration, providing a useful starting point for the approach developed in this chapter. The nuanced conceptualisation of the drivers of Eurasian integration that this literature offers can broaden our understanding of regional integration in general while going ‘beyond Brussels’—not only in the regional but also in a theoretical and normative sense. For example, Glenn Diesen develops the concepts of ‘economic statecraft’ and ‘geoeconomic strategy’ to analyse Russia’s grand strategy for a Greater Eurasia.27 This strategy entails utilising ‘economic connectivity to remove Russia from the periphery of Europe and Asia, and reposition it at the heart of an 24   Robert H.  Wade, ‘Return of Industrial Policy?’ International Review of Applied Economics 26, no. 2 (2012): 223–39, here 234. 25  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2014 (New York and Geneva: United Nations, 2014), 106. 26  Ibid., xi. 27  Glenn Diesen, Russia’s Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia (London: Routledge, 2018).

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integrated Eurasia’.28 His approach highlights the novelty of Russia’s reliance on economic statecraft, noting that ‘economic statecraft was virtually absent under the communist policies of the Soviet authorities’.29 Elsewhere, David Lane discusses Eurasian integration in the context of ‘the ambiguity of regionalism’.30 He points out that the new regionalism approach was developed in Western political studies and sees regions as the successors to nation states. The EU exemplifies this model, and there is a parallel approach within the EAEU literature that regards this regional association as a ‘stepping stone’ to the neoliberal world system, dominated by a core of hegemonic Western states. Lane proposes an alternative explanation of Eurasia as a ‘regional counterpoint’ consistent with the general trend of the rise of ‘semicore countries’ (for instance, China, Russia, India, Brazil and Venezuela) in an increasingly multipolar world system. Taking a more nuanced approach, Elena Ustyuzhanina examines the EAEU from the perspective of value chains—the steps taken to bring a product to market—and the international division of labour.31 This approach is closest to the argument developed in this chapter and, thus, deserves to be discussed in more detail. Ustyuzhanina looks at the economic benefits of integration within the EAEU. Her focus is primarily on Russia and its position in global value chains, which nonetheless has major implications for Eurasian integration. Ustyuzhanina argues that cooperation within the EAEU and the orientation towards the East more broadly is an opportunity to build new value chains where Russia could play the role of a global integrator. From this perspective, Russia’s main challenge during the last twenty years has been that it ‘did not fit into these chains very well’.32 Those chains where Russia has favourable positions are competitive mainly in the domestic market while ‘in competitive chains Russia’s position was usually subordinate’, with Russian companies having a smaller share of value added. Furthermore, Russia ‘participates in the international division of labour mostly as a resource provider’.33 The question that she poses is twofold: ‘to what extent will Russia’s competitiveness  Ibid., 1.  Ibid., 3. 30  David Lane, ‘Eurasian Integration as a Response to Neoliberal Globalization’, in Lane and Samokhvalov (eds.), The Eurasian Project and Europe: Regional Discontinuities and Geopolitics, 3–22, here 12. 31  Ustyuzhanina, ‘The Eurasian Union and Global Value Chains’, 35–45. 32  Ibid., 35. 33  Ibid., 37. 28 29

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increase due to its [EAEU] membership and is it possible to improve Russia’s position in the global division of labour and form new competitive value chains on this basis?’34 She reviews existing joint projects and cooperative ties between the EAEU members in a number of industries, concluding that promising value chains are likely to be formed in the nuclear power industry, automotive industry, space activities and machine-­ building for the arms industry. Summing up, the growing body of work on the EAEU has contributed to our understanding of its origins, institutional design and recent progress. At the same time, it has too often presented it as a project driven by Russia that serves its geopolitical ends but offers limited economic benefits to its members. To the extent that economic benefits are considered, they are seen either primarily in terms of Russia’s leverage—evident in selective bargains and ‘informal deals’35—or, more broadly, from the perspective of improved trade facilitation. This creates a skewed perspective of integration dynamics as a zero-sum game between the EAEU member states while downplaying the common interests these countries have in moving up global value chains, protecting their policy space and strengthening common bargaining power vis-à-vis developed countries. While emphasising the asymmetry of power within the EAEU, such a perspective misses the broader power asymmetry built into international political economy structures and institutions. It overlooks the hierarchical nature of the international division of labour and thus does not give the full picture of economic development.36

Towards a New Approach to Eurasian Integration In historical and institutional terms, the creation of the EAEU signified the culmination of two decades of a ‘holding-together integration’ in which countries that were previously part of a single state struggled to preserve economic links and interdependencies while overcoming the negative effects of the break-up.37 These countries have a common past in the Soviet Union: a shared economic system, common infrastructure and  Ibid., 43.  Dragneva and Wolczuk, ‘The Eurasian Economic Union’. 36  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2018, 76. 37  Alexander Libman and Evgeny Vinokurov, Holding-Together Regionalism: Twenty Years of Post-Soviet Integration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 34 35

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the same educational and research and development systems, including a common administrative language. Based on this common historical experience, some scholars point out that economic integration in the Eurasian space represents a case of ‘re-integration’, which makes it conceptually different from the likes of the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the South American trade bloc, Mercosur.38 The importance of this Soviet legacy in analysing contemporary integration efforts in Eurasia cannot of course be easily dismissed. Nevertheless, it is expedient to caution against taking this ‘re-integration’ too literally as ‘a regression to the state of the USSR’.39 While there has been no shortage of critical accounts of Eurasian integration that tend to exaggerate continuities with the Soviet past, these perspectives do not provide theoretical leverage to explain the new forms of economic integration and industrial cooperation in the contemporary context. Although highly critical and even suspicious of integration initiatives in the post-Soviet space, they are rather uncritical from the perspective of international political economy. Proponents of this approach regard a state-led economic union in the form of EAEU as ‘a route down an economic cul-de-sac’, which will lead to isolation, protectionism and, ultimately, economic decline.40 Their preferred alternative for the EAEU countries is closer integration into the international economy, specifically into global value chains. This essentially means aligning these countries’ policies to the interests of the chains’ lead firms—which includes removing barriers to the free flow of goods and finance that connect suppliers along the chain—and introducing measures that protect the lead firms’ proprietary assets. However, an open trade and investment regime by itself is not sufficient to generate the upgrading within global value chains that transitional or developing countries seek—a major problem that is not adequately addressed by proponents of this type of integration.41 At best, proponents of this approach offer only a limited solution to this problem by advocating horizontal policy measures such as education, infrastructure development and technology transfer. At worst, they misconstrue these countries’ trade and

 Cooper, ‘The Development of Eurasian Economic Integration’, 15–33.  Lane, ‘Eurasian Integration as a Response to Neoliberal Globalization’, 12. 40  Ibid. 41  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2014, 104. 38 39

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industrial policies as ‘murky protectionism’42 or even ‘the revival of Soviet economics’.43 This demands an alternative reading of Eurasian integration based on the important public policy purpose of measures ranging from building domestic productive capacity and protecting consumers to promoting financial stability and preventing drastic declines in employment.44 In the absence of support through their government’s trade and industrial policies, it is increasingly difficult for transitional-country firms to overcome the numerous competitive challenges of entering or moving up the value chains. These challenges are compounded by asymmetric governance relations that underlie international production networks and which increase the risks of transitional countries becoming locked into low-valued-added activities because of pressure from lead firms.45 It also requires a departure from existing accounts of Eurasian integration in its treatment of reforms and free trade rules. Whereas this literature sees World Trade Organization (WTO) rules as providing an ‘external anchor’ to domestic reform,46 a more critical perspective suggests that ‘free trade’ rules often amount to limiting the policy space of developing countries while failing to move the system ‘in a more inclusive, participatory and development-friendly direction’.47 The reforms generally considered necessary for inclusion in global value chains also tend to reinforce existing asymmetries at the expense of developing and transitional countries.48 The latter point relates to the imperative of going ‘beyond Brussels’ in a normative sense. Even as convergence to EU norms can be seen as providing impetus for modernisation as, for example, in the case of harmonisation of product standards and quality upgrading,49 it also confers tremendous strategic advantages to European firms, which ‘realize economies of scale by gaining access to a larger market with the same standards’.50  Ibid., 91.  Anders Åslund, ‘Sergey Glazyev and the Revival of Soviet Economics’, Post-Soviet Affairs 29, no. 5 (2013): 375–86. 44  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2014, 91. 45  Ibid., 104–5. 46  Marc Bacchetta and Zdenek Drabek, ‘Effects of WTO Accession on Policy-Making in Sovereign States: Preliminary Lessons from the Recent Experience of Transition Countries’, Staff Working Paper DERD-2002-02 (2002). 47  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2018, xiii. 48  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2014, 105. 49  Ibid., 106. 50  Ibid., 88. 42 43

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Relatedly, benchmarking Eurasian integration against the EU model has put the main emphasis on the institutional quality gap, resulting in institutional determinism which amounts to suggesting that the only way for transitional countries to develop is ‘to become developed’.51 It idealises the EU model while assuming the post-Soviet integration model inferior a priori. This approach overlooks that the reasons for integration for developing or transitional countries are bound to be different from those of developed countries. Furthermore, trade rules and other norms are hardly neutral; rather they reflect the interests of powerful actors within the international political economy. For many developing countries, trade under hyperglobalisation has led to the strengthening of the economic weight of extractive industries.52 In recent decades, trade agreements have privileged the requirements of capital and curtailed development possibilities in line with social priorities, contributing to domestic inequalities in many countries. How to navigate this complex web of trade and investment rules in order to find an optimal path ‘to marry local goals with integration into the global economy’ is a challenge faced by any regional integration organisation, including the EAEU.53 The fact that these concerns tend to be overlooked in mainstream EAEU literature, though, speaks to its normative bias, which results in the kind of teleological approach that sees the lack of convergence to EU norms as evidence that an economic motive for integration is absent. All of this suggests the need for an alternative approach that ‘provincialises’ the EU while ‘normalising’ nascent regional integration efforts such as the EAEU.

ETPs as a Case Study of Technological Cooperation in the EAEU The creation of the Single Economic Space (SES) and the establishment of the EUREC in 2012 opened opportunities for deeper integration between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, including the creation of

51  Dani Rodrik, ‘Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform’, Journal of Economic Literature 44, no. 4 (2006): 973–87, here 980. 52  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2018, x. 53  Ibid., xiii.

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technology platforms at the supranational level.54 A working group on the creation of ETPs, comprising officials of relevant ministries and departments of the member states and representatives of science, was formed to prepare proposals for cooperation within the framework of the SES. The group’s activities focused on the selection of RTPs ripe for joint participation from the three countries, consideration of the feasibility of creating new technology platforms (TPs), preparation of the necessary regulatory framework and formation of financial support mechanisms.55 Thus, the organisational work on the creation of ETPs predated the creation of the EAEU. However, after the establishment of the EAEU, the process of the formation of ETPs moved up a gear. The main work on the creation of ETPs was carried out in 2016–17, with the participation of experts from the member states and the EUREC.56 In order to create this new instrument of scientific and technological cooperation, for the first time in post-­ Soviet space a large-scale comprehensive analysis of foreign and domestic experience in the formation of technology platforms and joint projects was carried out. By 2018, the ETP activities had moved from the organisational phase to the stage of actually developing and implementing specific industrial projects. Although the formation of ETPs as an instrument of intraregional cooperation coincided with the creation of the EAEU, ETPs were essentially a successor to RTPs, which themselves built on Soviet industrial heritage. The Russian government initiated RTPs in 2010 to facilitate horizontal linkages between universities, research and development (R&D) organisations and industry. Inadequate horizontal connections in the Russian technological innovation system are generally seen as a legacy of the Soviet period. There are doubtless linkages between the government and the R&D sector and between the government and industry, but interactions between R&D organisations and industry are weak.57 The still largely government-owned and controlled R&D sector in Russia ­represents 54  EUREC, ‘Analiticheskaya spravka: Rossiyskie tekhnologicheskie platformy (RTP), perekhod ot RTP k Evraziyskim tekhnologicheskim platformam’, 13 (2012), available at http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/act/prom_i_agroprom/dep_prom/Pages/ default.aspx (last accessed 14 January 2020). 55  Ibid., 14. 56  EUREC, ‘Doklad o deyatel’nosti Evraziyskikh tekhnologicheskikh platform’ 4 (2018), available at http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/act/prom_i_agroprom/dep_prom/ Pages/default.aspx (last accessed 14 January 2020). 57  Dezhina, ‘Technology Platforms in Russia’, 3.

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an important continuity with the Soviet R&D system. According to Loren Graham and Irina Dezhina, this system comprised three pyramids in organisational terms, which they call the ‘university system’ (predominantly a teaching institution), the ‘academy of sciences system’ (which performed most of the fundamental research), and the ‘industrial and defense ministry system’ (primarily involved in applied research).58 Dezhina suggests that even though many elements of the Russian innovation system were introduced since the 2000s, the lack of cooperation and general disconnection between R&D organisations and industry remains a major problem that hinders innovative development in Russia.59 It should be emphasised that technology platforms are aimed at ensuring the integration of science and business, thus targeting the weakest link in Russia’s innovation system. A technological platform is created primarily to involve scientists, engineers and researchers in the process of solving specific innovative tasks for industries and implementing the results of their R&D efforts in industrial production.60 RTPs were created to address the following problems specific to Russia’s innovation system: a limited planning horizon and low innovation receptivity of business; fragmentary nature of the R&D sector; challenges in transforming R&D results into commercial technologies; duplication and poor dissemination of state-­ supported R&D; as well as the presence of barriers in the dissemination of technologies related to industry regulation.61 Additionally, underdevelopment of the tools for setting scientific and technological priorities and low level of integration of these tools into the decision-making system were noted among the main challenges. RTPs were supposed to address these challenges with the ultimate objective of introducing innovative products to the external and domestic market through R&D and subsequent industrial production. Another defining characteristic of technology platforms is that they are sector-specific structures targeting intellectual and material resources towards the priority areas of scientific and technological development of a 58  Loren Graham and Irina Dezhina, Science in the New Russia: Crisis, Aid, Reform (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008). 59  Dezhina, ‘Technology Platforms in Russia’. 60  Evraziya Ekspert, ‘Sergey Sidorsky: “Evraziyskie tekhnologicheskie platformy mogut razrabatyvat” produktsiyu budushchego’, 16 January 2017, available at https://eurasia. expert/sergey-sidorskiy-evraziyskie-tekhnologicheskie-platformy/ (last accessed 14 January 2020). 61  EUREC, ‘Analiticheskaya spravka’, 3–4.

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particular industry. Currently, there are 36 technology platforms in Russia in the most promising areas of scientific and technological development.62 These areas include medicine and biotechnology, information and communication technologies, photonics, aerospace, nuclear and radiation technologies, natural resource extraction, ecological development, agriculture, industrial technologies and others. Although some of these are relatively new technologies, the core industrial sectors such as aerospace, nuclear power, advanced materials and other sectors of the defence industry were developed during the Soviet period. In fact, ‘the Soviet industrial base still forms the core of Russia’s high-technology industries’.63 Keith Crane and Artur Usanov also suggest that the source of human capital for these high-technology industries remains the Soviet education and scientific establishment. This includes the Russian Academy of Sciences, which inherited most of the all-union basic science research facilities after the disintegration of the USSR.64 This extensive system of research laboratories and development institutes shrank in the post-Soviet period along with R&D expenditures. However, since the mid-2000s substantial state investments have been made to revive and modernise traditional high-­ technology industries in order to facilitate Russia’s ‘industrial breakthrough’.65 This re-industrialisation strategy is based in part on stimulating innovation through state-owned enterprises (SOEs).66 The choice of SOEs as a vehicle of modernisation is not coincidental. The most innovative of them, such as Rosatom and Gazprom, have managed to preserve the scientific cooperation between applied science and industry, which was disrupted in the case of most Russian manufacturing sectors in the early post-Soviet period. This was partially reflected in the systemic approach of 62  See TP TPI, ‘Reiting tekhplatform po itogam monitoringa za 2017 god’ (2018), available at http://tptpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Деятельность-Рейтинг-ТПТПИ-2017.pdf (last accessed 14 January 2020). 63  Keith Crane and Artur Usanov, ‘Role of High-Technology Industries’, in Anders Åslund, Sergei Guriev and Andrew C.  Kuchins (eds.), Russia after the Global Economic Crisis (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010), 97. 64  Ibid., 97–8. 65  Anna Lowry, ‘Russia’s Post-Neoliberal Development Strategy and High-Technology Considerations’, in Vladimir Gel’man (ed.), Authoritarian Modernization in Russia: Ideas, Institutions, and Policies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 128–47. 66   Mikhail Gershman, Sergey Bredikhin and Konstantin Vishnevskiy, ‘The Role of Corporate Foresight and Technology Roadmapping in Companies’ Innovation Development: The Case of Russian State-Owned Enterprises’, Technological Forecasting & Social Change 110 (2016): 187–95.

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their innovation development programmes (IDPs), which is characteristic of the Soviet school of applied science.67 A distinctive aspect of RTPs is that they were developed in conjunction with IDPs of SOEs.68 Since 2011, Russia’s largest SOEs have been obliged to develop IDPs. Subsequently, the participation of leading Russian SOEs in the formation and activities of technological platforms was also mandatory. Thus, leading Russian SOEs such as Rosatom, Rostec, RZD, Rusnano and RusHydro became coordinators of newly formed TPs.69 RTPs coordinated by Rusnano, Rostec and Rosatom were ranked among the most effective RTPs according to the government’s 2017 assessment of their work. Overall, the assessment revealed that 21 RTPs were functioning effectively whereas seven platforms proved ineffective and two were not functioning.70

The Importance of European and Russian Precedents in the Creation of ETPs Like European TPs, Eurasian TPs originated at the national level. In other words, Russian TPs, launched by the federal government in 2010, predated the development of this instrument at the supranational level. Additionally, RTPs were explicitly modelled on European TPs, which were first implemented about 15 years ago.71 RTPs were created as a communication tool to bring main stakeholders in the innovation system (business, science, state and civil society) closer together with the goal of creating new promising commercial technologies, products and services. At the same time, the literature on RTPs notes significant differences between Russian and European TPs. Dezhina suggests that the EU adopts a bottom-up approach whereas Russia follows ‘its traditional path of

67  Expert RA, ‘Reiting Programm Innovatsionnogo Razvitiya Goskorporatsiy i Kompaniy s Gosudarstvennym Uchastiem’, 27 June 2012, available at http://www.raexpert.ru/ docbank/5e8/716/33b/ad80332b0fbb3c44bfad7b2.pdf (last accessed 14 January 2020). 68  EUREC, ‘Analiticheskaya spravka’, 3. 69  Ibid., 6. 70  ‘National software technology platform’ suspended its activities and one of the TPs in aerospace technology (‘Using the results of space activities in the interests of final consumers’) is in the process of changing its coordinator. See TP TPI, ‘Reiting tekhplatform po itogam monitoringa za 2017 god’. 71  Dezhina, ‘Technology Platforms in Russia’, 2.

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top-down initiating and regulation’.72 The Russian government plays a key role in creating and facilitating TPs, which are seen as experts for designing Russian industrial policy. Dezhina also finds that, in contrast to European TPs, Russian analogues received no initial financial support, which hindered their effectiveness. Another difference noted by Dezhina is that large companies are not as active in RTPs as they are in European TPs. The main participants in RTPs are universities and government research institutes. The EU model has undoubtedly influenced the institutional design of Eurasian integration. However, as noted above, the emulation of EU institutional features has also been highly selective, with the EAEU departing from the EU model significantly on issues of sovereignty. The EAEU’s supranational institutional framework for industrial cooperation allows for considerable flexibility of the industrial policy regime and sufficient policy space for member states to pursue their economic, developmental and social agenda. The institutional design of the intraregional industrial cooperation within the EAEU can thus be seen as a path-dependent process of not only selective adaption of certain EU institutional features but also articulation and (re-)interpretation of Soviet industrial and institutional heritage. Contrary to the simplified understanding of the EAEU, the institutional design and activities in the area of industrial cooperation reflect a creative process of institutional learning, adaptation and experimentation that remains in dialogue with the EU institutional history, as well as broader debates on the role of industrial policy in successful cases of structural transformation in the past. Table 9.1 shows the high level of uploading of RTPs into the EAEU setting. Eight out of 15 ETPs have a clear connection to RTPs. Among those, four ETPs have RTPs as their founders.73 These RTPs were among the most effective, receiving top or above average ratings in 2017 based on the results of the government’s monitoring.74 The evaluation criteria included the TP’s level of organisation, content and quality of the strategic research programme (the highest weighting in the composite index), compliance of the 2016 and 2017 reports with methodological materials of the Ministry of Economic Development, action plan for 2018,  Ibid., 4.  The legal person responsible for creating an ETP, specifically, the starter of an ETP listed as an ‘uchreditel’ (founder) in the ETP’s passport. 74  TP TPI, ‘Reiting tekhplatform po itogam monitoringa za 2017 god’. 72 73

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Table 9.1  Relationship between Eurasian and Russian technology platforms Eurasian technology platforms Include a Russian TP as its founder: Eurasian biomedical technology platform Environmental technologies

Russian founders of the ETP Technology platform ‘Medicine of the future’

Technology platform ‘Environmental technologies’ Technologies of food and processing TP ‘Technologies of food and processing industry—healthy food products industry—healthy food products’ Industrial technologies ‘Light industry’ Technology platform ‘Textile and light industry’ Have the same Russian founders as Russian TPs: Eurasian supercomputer technology Program Systems Institute of RAS platform Photonics Laser Association Eurasian LED technology platform Non-commercial partnership of manufacturers of LEDs and systems based on them (Rusnano) Metallurgy and new materials All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of technologies Aviation Materials National University of Science and Technology MISiS OJSC ‘RT-Metallurgy’ (Rostec) No connection to Russian TPs: Space and geo-information CJSC ‘International Space Technologies’ technologies—products of global LLC ‘SOVZOND Company’ competitiveness Moscow State University Lighting engineering International Lighting Engineering Corporation Russian Lighting Research Institute Technologies of mining and processing Research Institute of Comprehensive of solid minerals Exploitation of Mineral Resources of RAS The Institute of Mining of the Ural Branch of RAS EurasiaBio Russian Biotechnology Society Eurasian agricultural technology All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of platform Agricultural Economics OJSC ‘Nevskoe’ Academician Viktor Dragavstev LLC ‘Small innovative enterprise BGU-Biotechnology’ Industrial technologies for the Non-profit organisation ‘Union of cement construction industry manufacturers’ (continued)

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Table 9.1 (continued) Eurasian technology platforms

Russian founders of the ETP

Energy and electrification

Moscow Power Engineering Institute LLC Grossmann RUS

Source: Annexes 2–16 to the Decree of the EEC Council No. 32 dated 18 October 2016

­ evelopment of regulatory mechanisms, foreign economic activity and d international scientific and technological cooperation, as well as general activity. The other four ETPs have the same Russian founders as RTPs. The effectiveness of respective RTPs was mixed in this case, with two75 receiving high or above average ratings and two76 ranked as ineffective. The remaining seven ETPs have no obvious connection to RTPs. Russian SOEs were involved as founders of only two ETPs.77 By contrast, Russian SOEs have been much more active in RTPs, with Rusnano, Rostec and Rosatom functioning as coordinators for some of the most effective RTPs.

Industrial Cooperation in the EAEU: The Legal and Institutional Framework One of the key original goals of the EAEU is the member states’ industrial modernisation.78 The industrial sector is the core of the economic integration of the EAEU member states around which other sectors are coordinated, including a single trade, customs and financial space.79 Therefore, industrial cooperation in the EAEU is the top priority for the member states. The organisational work on industrial policy predated the creation of the EAEU.  In June 2012, the heads of governments of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia tasked the EUREC with the development of proposals for deepening industrial cooperation of the three countries with the 75  These are ‘New polymer composite materials and technologies’ and ‘Innovative laser, optical and optoelectronic technologies – photonics’. 76  ‘National supercomputer technology platform’ and ‘Development of Russian LED technology’. 77  ‘Eurasian LED technology platform’ (Rusnano) and ‘Metallurgy and new materials technologies’ (Rostec). 78  Evraziya Ekspert, ‘Sergey Sidorsky’. 79  EUREC, Promyshlennaya politika v Evraziyskom Ekonomicheskom Soyuze: tri goda integratsii (Moscow: EUREC, 2018).

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prospect of formulating a coherent industrial policy.80 The Decision no. 40 of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in 2013 gave a more precise direction to the coordination of national industrial policies and identified priority industries for cooperation. Subsequently, the normative basis for industrial cooperation evolved within the framework of developing the EAEU Treaty.81 The initial decision on the coordination of national industrial policies was expanded with an article of the EAEU Treaty on industrial policy and cooperation (Article 92). This, in turn, laid the groundwork for preparing a strategic document on the main areas of industrial cooperation in the Union. The article also established specific mechanisms of industrial cooperation, including the creation of technology platforms as well as engineering centres, technology transfer networks and industrial cooperation and subcontracting systems. ETPs were established as a mechanism of the member states’ cooperation in scientific, technological, innovation and production spheres. They are considered an element of the Union’s innovation infrastructure.82 ETPs facilitate the integration of science into production chains to create innovative technologies and develop new competitive products. According to the former Minister for Industry and the Agro-Industrial Complex of the EUREC, Sergei Sidorsky, the task of ETPs is ‘to increase the innovation intensity of industry in the EAEU countries, accumulate national and world scientific and technological advances and ensure their practical use in creating high-tech industries’.83 The implementation of industrial policy in the EAEU involves institutional interaction of the authorised decision-making bodies.84 These include the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, the Eurasian Economic Commission and the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union. In accordance with the EAEU Treaty, member states in cooperation with the Commission developed a strategic document—the ‘Main Areas of Industrial Cooperation within the Framework of the Eurasian Economic Union’—which was approved by the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council. The member states and the EUREC jointly develop and implement these areas. According to the 80  EUREC, ‘Obshchie svedeniya po formirovaniyu osnovnykh napravleniy promyshlennogo sotrudnichestva’. 81  Ibid. 82  Evraziya Ekspert, ‘Sergey Sidorsky’. 83  Ibid. 84  EUREC, Promyshlennaya politika v Evraziyskom Ekonomicheskom Soyuze, 27.

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document, industrial cooperation of the member states is aimed at import substitution, increasing the export potential of the manufacturing industry, creating innovative industrial sectors and modernising enterprises.85 The Minister for Industry and the Agro-Industrial Complex of the EUREC oversees this area of integration. Additionally, practical integration issues are managed by the Commission’s Industrial Policy Department and Advisory Committee for Industry and high-level groups on industrial policy and integration issues.86 The flexibility of the EAEU institutional design is evident in the legal framework for industrial cooperation within the Union. While industrial policy is the prerogative of the member states, the EUREC acts as a consultative and coordinating body in the area of industrial cooperation. In terms of the EUREC organisational structure, this area falls under the purview of the Minister for Industry and the Agro-Industrial Complex of the EUREC—a position held by a representative from Belarus since the Commission’s founding. This partially reflects the importance of intraregional industrial cooperation and trade for Belarus. Specifically, with only 4 per cent of total EAEU GDP, Belarus accounts for more than a quarter of total intra-Union exports.87 Since the founding of the Commission, Minister for Industry and the Agro-Industrial Complex of the EUREC was Sergei Sidorsky, former Prime Minister of Belarus.88 In September 2018, he was replaced by Alexander Subbotin, who previously held positions of Assistant to the President of Belarus for the Vitebsk Region and Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food of Belarus.89 The EUREC’s organisational structure and its activities in the area of industrial policy cast doubt on the common assertion in the literature that the other members have been uncommitted to the integration project and  Vinokurov, Evraziyskiy ekonomicheskiy soyuz, 74.  EUREC, Promyshlennaya politika v Evraziyskom Ekonomicheskom Soyuze, 27. 87  Evgeny Vinokurov, Mikhail Demidenko, Dmitry Korshunov, Vladimir Pereboev, Taras Tsukarev, Roman Gubenko and Ekaterina Khmarenko, Eurasian Economic Integration  – 2017 (Saint Petersburg: EDB Centre for Integration Studies, 2017), 54. 88  Tatyana Polezhay, ‘Rossiya, Belarus’ i Kazakhstan sozdali EEK. Pervyi predsedatel’ kollegii – ministr torgovli RF’, BELTA, 19 December 2011, available at https://news.tut.by/ economics/264701.html (last accessed 14 January 2020). 89  TUT.BY, ‘Sidorskomu i Koreshkovu nashli zamenu v EEK’, 25 July 2018, available at https://news.tut.by/economics/602126.html (last accessed 14 January 2020); EUREC, ‘Alexander Subbotin’, available at http://www.eurasiancommission.org/en/act/prom_i_ agroprom/Pages/director.aspx (last accessed 14 January 2020). 85 86

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have exerted only a ‘limited sway’ over its agenda.90 The importance of coordinated industrial policy and industrialisation, more broadly, has been stressed repeatedly by heads of the EAEU member states. By and large, they have emphasised the economic benefits of Eurasian integration for their countries derived in part through establishing conditions for economic and social stability in the region.91 Additionally, they have stressed the need to develop regional production networks. For example, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, noted that ‘the development of projects that create regional production chains for enhancing cooperative ties between our countries’ is an important area requiring ‘separate attention’.92 In April 2016, the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council approved the List of Areas for the Formation of ETPs and the Regulation on the Formation and Functioning of ETPs.93 There are 14 main areas of industrial cooperation. These are the same as for RTPs, which were formed first. The Regulation gives ETPs broad powers to create and introduce innovative products and technologies, establish cooperation in the implementation of joint initiatives and projects and submit proposals to national industrial development programmes. According to the Regulation, the objectives of ETPs are to create common registries of advanced technologies and products, identify the needs of member states’ economies in new technologies, search for priority scientific and technological projects, promote their development and support joint projects within the EAEU.94 In accordance with this legislative and institutional framework, the EUREC industrial bloc, together with leading scientific and industrial organisations of the EAEU member states, made proposals on the formation of first ETPs, which were supported by the EUREC Council.95 In October 2016, the EUREC Council approved eleven ETPs. During 2017–19, the EUREC approved the creation of four additional ETPs.  Dragneva and Wolczuk, ‘The Eurasian Economic Union’, 24.  EUREC, Promyshlennaya politika v Evraziyskom Ekonomicheskom Soyuze, 4–8. 92  Ibid., 7. 93  EUREC, ‘Evraziyskie ekonomicheskie platformy’ (2017), available at http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/act/prom_i_agroprom/dep_prom/SiteAssets/broshura%20ETP. pdf (last accessed 14 January 2020). 94  EUREC, ‘Doklad o deyatel’nosti Evraziyskikh tekhnologicheskikh platform’. 95  Ibid.; Tengrinews, ‘O formirovanii prioritetnykh evraziyskikh tekhnologicheskikh platform’ (2019), available at https://tengrinews.kz/zakon/mejdunarodnyie_organyi_i_organizatsii/evrazes/id-H16EV00032R/ (last accessed 14 January 2020). 90 91

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Table 9.2 shows the list of ETPs and priority industries in which they have been formed—ten industries out of fourteen priority areas of industrial cooperation. Thus, the list is not final, and the Commission’s work on the formation of ETPs continues. At the next stage, the EAEU plans to create ETPs in the fields of electronics and mechanical engineering technologies, chemistry and petrochemistry, energy, transport technologies and nuclear and radiation technologies. According to the Regulation on the Formation and Functioning of the ETPs, their participants may include business enterprises, scientific organisations, state development institutions and public and other institutions, including from states that are not members of the EAEU, as well as individuals. ETPs have to include participants from at least three member states. The analysis of the composition of the first twelve ETPs by member state shows that participants from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia form Table 9.2  Eurasian technology platforms Industrial priorities for the formation of Eurasian technology platforms ETPs   1. Aerospace technology   2. Medical and medical biotechnology, pharmaceuticals   3. Information and communication technology   4. Photonics

  1. Space and geo-information technologies— products of global competitiveness   2. Eurasian biomedical technology platform   3. Eurasian supercomputer technology platform

  4. Photonics   5. Eurasian LED technology platform   6. Lighting engineering   5. Extraction of natural resources and   7. Technologies of mining and processing of oil and gas processing solid minerals   6. Ecological development   8. Environmental technologies   7. Agriculture, food industry,   9. EurasiaBio biotechnology 10. Technologies of food and processing industry—healthy food products 11. Eurasian agricultural technology platform   8. Industrial technologies 12. Industrial technologies ‘Light industry’ 13. Industrial technologies for the construction industry   9. Metallurgy and new materials 14. Metallurgy and new materials technologies technologies 10. Energy 15. Energy and electrification Source: Annexes 1–16 to the Decree of the EEC Council No. 32 dated 18 October 2016

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the core of these ETPs, being involved in all 12 of them.96 Armenia is involved in six and Kyrgyzstan in four ETPs. Russian participants predominate in all except three ETPs. They are outnumbered by participants from Kyrgyzstan and Belarus in the ‘industrial technologies “light industry”’ and ‘metallurgy and new materials technologies’ TPs, respectively. The ‘environmental technologies’ TP has equal representation, with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia represented by one organisation each. In order to show potential economic benefits of industrial cooperation in the EAEU, it might be helpful to briefly outline the range of activities carried out within the framework of ETPs. To give just a few examples from two different industrial sectors, the early initiatives of the ‘photonics’ TP and ‘Eurasian LED technology platform’ are discussed, followed by some of the more recent activities in the aviation industry. The creation of the ‘photonics’ TP and ‘Eurasian LED technology platform’ was in part aimed at addressing the following sector-specific challenges: substantial volume of unregulated imports from China of low quality, outdated codes of commodity nomenclature and the predominance of medium and small organisations with limited financial capabilities.97 Specifically, it was determined that outdated codes of commodity nomenclature do not allow to monitor the volume of trade in these products and assess the potential of the regional market and the share of domestic producers in it. As far as the dominance of small and medium-sized companies in this sector, the main concern was that due to their status and financial resources, they are not able to solve systemic problems of this segment of the regional market. As a result of these preliminary assessments, the Department of Industrial Policy and the relevant technological platforms agreed to undertake joint work in these sectors to address systemic issues and remove barriers to the development of these innovative industries. The EUREC is also working on the development of industrial cooperation in aviation. The Commission notes that the decision adopted on 10 November 2017 by the EUREC Council to extend the exemption from customs duties and taxes for temporarily imported turbojet medium-haul civil passenger aircraft means that the member states effectively supported foreign manufacturers and suppliers of components for Airbus-319, -320,  EUREC, ‘Evraziyskie ekonomicheskie platformy’.  EUREC, ‘Evraziyskie tekhnologicheskie platformy: obshchie svedeniya’ (2019), available at http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/act/prom_i_agroprom/dep_prom/ Pages/default.aspx (last accessed 14 January 2020). 96 97

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-321 and Boeing-737.98 However, it stresses that this should not be the norm in the future. The Commission is working on issues of cooperation in the aviation industry both in the production of new wide-body long-­ haul aircraft and as part of the national production programmes of civil aircraft. It considers existing competencies of member states in terms of technology, materials, human resources and testing infrastructure. The tangible result of such industrial cooperation will be the creation of a modern competitive export-oriented aircraft that will also stimulate long-­ term demand in a wide range of sectors, including ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, microelectronics and mechanical engineering. The Commission seeks to establish a division of labour, which is an important component of economic integration. Specifically, it is considering involving Kazakh enterprises in the production of titanium elements, including those based on additive technologies, and Armenian and Belarusian enterprises in the production of avionics components.99 In sum, the EUREC has been very active in the initial stage of the creation of ETPs, 15 of which are currently formed in ten priority areas. Although the priority areas are the same as for RTPs and thus clearly reflect Russia’s preferences in the area of industrial cooperation, the comparison of ETPs and RTPs reveals a more complex picture. Specifically, only half of ETPs have a clear connection to RTPs. Four of those incorporate RTPs as their founders. These RTPs were among the most effective at the national level. However, other factors besides Russia’s preferences and effectiveness of its TPs seem to influence the direction of intraregional industrial cooperation. The preferences of other member states and existing cooperative ties are among such factors. Similarly, the composition of ETPs by member states shows that Russian participants predominate in all except three ETPs, which is to be expected given the size of Russia’s economy. At the same time, industrial cooperation within the framework of ETPs also reflects the preferences of smaller economies. For example, in the ‘industrial technologies “light industry”’ ETP, participants from Kyrgyzstan significantly outnumber Russian participants. Another difference between ETPs and RTPs is the extent of involvement of SOEs. Russian SOEs have been less active in the formation of ETPs compared to their extensive involvement at the national level, as coordinators of several RTPs. However, this might change as new ETPs are created in such fields  EUREC, Promyshlennaya politika v Evraziyskom Ekonomicheskom Soyuze, 64.  Ibid.

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as electronics and mechanical engineering technologies, energy, transport technologies and nuclear and radiation technologies, in which Russian SOEs have been quite active at the national level.

Conclusions The EAEU was created with the stated goals of facilitating economic ties among its members, modernising their economies and improving their global competitiveness. Its current and potential effectiveness should therefore be evaluated in reference to these objectives. For Russia, as the EAEU’s largest economy, cooperation within the EAEU presents an opportunity to build new value chains where Russia could play the role of a global or regional integrator. Industrial policies that support private enterprises in identifying and expanding activities with greater value added can help boost overall productivity and income growth, thus offering significant long-term benefits for all member states. Such policies can facilitate diversification and industrialisation of the member states’ economies, reducing their vulnerability to the negative effects of commodity price volatility.100 Intraregional cooperation also opens opportunities for these countries to improve their position in the global division of labour and strengthen common bargaining power while maintaining sufficient policy space to pursue their economic, development and social policy objectives. Rather than addressing these issues head-on, existing literature, with a few notable exceptions, seems to suggest that these concerns are either irrelevant or unimportant for the EAEU member states. The literature sees the lack of commitment to deep economic integration on part of the member states as evidence that the economic motive is absent, which renders the Union ineffective. Since the member states have not invested in strong supranational institutions, the argument goes, the architecture of the EAEU is such that it is unlikely to facilitate regulatory and institutional modernisation. This argument confuses means with goals. It is also indicative of a common normative bias in this literature, evidently inspired by the Brussels-centric model of integration, which assumes that regulatory modernisation should be spearheaded from the top down, from the supranational to the national level. However, strong supranational institutions are not an end in itself. Instead, the effectiveness of the supranational institutional framework depends in part on the extent to which it  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2014, 97.

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complements the achievement of national development goals. Furthermore, deep economic integration and economic development are not necessarily mutually compatible goals. In fact, available evidence suggests that the proliferation of multilateral, bilateral and regional trade agreements since the 1990s has considerably restricted national policy space, limiting or forbidding the very policies that played a key role in successful processes of structural transformation in the past.101 Maintaining sovereignty of member states within a regional union is hardly an aberration; it is certainly not a sign of weak or ineffective institutional architecture of the Union. Retaining flexibility within the common regime is an adequate response to the challenges of economic development in the era of hyperglobalisation when a harmonious marriage between local goals and integration into the global economy is increasingly becoming an exception rather a norm. Successful cases of economic development and industrial upgrading are rare by any measure of success.102 Several transitional countries discovered that their seemingly successful integration into international production networks is ‘linked to only “thin” industrialization’.103 For example, the experiences of Eastern and Central European countries as assembly manufacturers in the electronics and automotive industries have been associated with the creation of enclave economies, ‘with few domestic linkages and limited, if any, upgrading’.104 Russia and other EAEU member-states have resisted this ‘fast-track’ to industrial development and remain less integrated into the international economy than countries in Eastern and Central Europe.105 At the same time, as Ustyuzhanina suggests, Russia’s own policy—reducing investment in R&D and opting for ready-made finished products—has led it ‘into a trap of the international division of labour’, with its manufacturing industry becoming technologically dependent on western countries.106 Consequently, Russia is trying to change its position in the international division of labour in part by building competitive value chains within the EAEU. If a ‘fast route’ to industrialisation is ruled out, that leaves a much more difficult path of simultaneously mastering all stages of production and building a full, vertically integrated  Ibid., 80–82.  Wade, ‘The Developmental State’, 523. 103  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2014, 79. 104  UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 2018, x. 105  Lane, ‘Eurasian Integration as a Response to Neoliberal Globalization’, 5–6. 106  Ustyuzhanina, ‘The Eurasian Union and Global Value Chains’, 37. 101 102

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industry. This means that the EAEU countries face an uphill battle in creating production networks and developing innovative industries. However, with the development of new mechanisms of industrial cooperation such as ETPs, engineering centres, technology transfer networks and subcontracting systems, inclusive industrialisation with significant economic and social ‘spillovers’ becomes feasible. As the aviation industry example shows, joint efforts aimed at fostering regional production networks and developing the EAEU’s own product have many ‘indisputable advantages’.107 These include not only honing and improving existing competencies in technologies, materials and human resources but also stimulating demand in related industries, thus laying the foundation for broader economic and social prosperity in the region. Considering that ETP activities have moved from planning to implementation stage only in 2018, it is too early to evaluate their results.108 At the same time, it is noteworthy that there is an emergent consensus and motivation among the EAEU member states to move in this direction. Assuming that a key ingredient of success is this strategy, the initial results of the planning and organisational stage of industrial development are quite promising. Specifically, the development of a comprehensive legislative and institutional framework for industrial cooperation in the EAEU is the clearest example of the tangible achievement of Eurasian integration.

 EUREC, Promyshlennaya politika v Evraziyskom Ekonomicheskom Soyuze, 64.  EUREC, ‘Doklad o deyatel’nosti Evraziyskikh tekhnologicheskikh platform’, 4.

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PART III

European Integration At and Around the Subregional Level

CHAPTER 10

Uniting Europe from Afar: Exile Plans for a Central European Federation in the Cold War Pauli Heikkilä

Alongside other steps taken to integrate European states after 1945, such as the founding of the Council of Europe and the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), arguably more daring proposals for a federal union were drafted by political émigrés from East Central Europe. Although aware of the institutions emerging in (Western) Europe, for these émigrés—many of whom were based in or relocated to the United States—such schemes were deemed profoundly deficient so long as their countries were not included. And yet many of their own suggestions for a Central European federation would come to very little. Studying these exile proposals thus reveals not only alternative conceptions of unity to the ‘core Europe’ integration of the ECSC but, as Juhana Aunesluoma likewise does in his chapter on the European Economic Area (EEA), also some of the limitations of these different integration schemes. What could

P. Heikkilä (*) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_10

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be imagined and what could be realised were, as we will discover, two very different things. Previous literature on the proposals has tended to discuss them with reference to the eventual 2004–07 enlargement of the European Union (EU) or from an individual national perspective.1 This chapter will add an international perspective to the development of the idea of a Central European federation. The chapter aims to show the advancement of these plans driven by four main coalitions of political parties which brought together refugees from the region: the agrarian-centred International Peasant Union (IPU), the Committee of Liberal Exiles (CLE), the Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe (CDUCE) and the Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe (SUCEE). They included politicians predominantly from the so-called Soviet satellites—Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania—and the three occupied Baltic republics—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—all of which implicitly were members of the proposed federation. However, the territorial reach of the plans was never successfully defined, and politicians from Yugoslavia, the Ukraine and Belorussia all participated to varying extents. Concentrating on these broader party groupings is a convenient basis for the chapter since it allows us to glean the ideas of a larger group of émigrés rather than simply the views and concerns of just one or two individuals—even if the parties themselves were relatively small and exile politics were notorious for their multiple factions. A study combining all four coalitions, moreover, helps reveal a dichotomy at the heart of discussions about a Central European federation. On the one hand, these party coalitions were all ideological opposites with subtle but significant differences of opinion about what such a federation should entail. And yet exile reactions were consistent enough that they all viewed European integration as something far more than a process limited to the six members of the ECSC. The chapter should help us understand why these differences eventually dwarfed the similarities. By way of context, the chapter begins with a brief pre-history of the Central European federation proposals. It then goes on to examine the four party coalitions in more detail and the debates which emerged 1  Thomas Lane and Marian Wolanski, Poland and European Integration: The Ideas and Movements of Polish Exiles in the West, 1939–91 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Sławomir Łukasiewicz, Third Europe: Polish Federalist Thought in the United States 1940–1970s (Santa Helena: Helena History Press, 2016).

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between them over a possible new federation of Central and Eastern European countries. The third section considers the impact on these discussions of the Schuman Plan which in 1951 led to the signing of the ECSC, before a final section explores why, despite much deliberation and initial optimism, the plans for a new federation ultimately faltered. The chapter is based on archival research undertaken on the CLE at the Archiv des Liberalismus in Gummersbach and on SUCEE at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. It also makes use of the IPU’s publication, the Monthly Bulletin, which frequently included news on post-war European unity. The source material of the CDUCE is only available as a collective work; where necessary relevant secondary literature on the Christian Democrats has thus been used to fill the gap.2

Liberation and Unification: The Origins of Central and Eastern European Cooperation Exile plans for European unity did not start after the Second World War; emigrants from both Western and Eastern Europe had in fact begun to outline proposals for various European federations and regional and subregional groupings already during the war itself. London in particular was full of politicians drafting constitutions and dreaming of new alliances.3 Many of these ideas foresaw a much deeper form of unity than had been the case with organisations like the League of Nations. The Dutch and Belgians for instance considered (and eventually succeeded in) combining their economic resources into a full customs union. Czechs and Poles likewise declared a desire to form a union of this sort as early as 1942. This declaration was often later celebrated as the nucleus for possible future unification in East Central Europe, although in reality disagreements saw support for the idea wane as the war went on.4 2  For instance, Wolfram Kaiser, Christian Democracy and the Origins of European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Piotr Kosicki and Sławomir Łukasiewicz (eds.), Christian Democracy Across the Iron Curtain: Europe Redefined (Cham: Springer, 2018). 3   See Martin Conway and José Gotovitch (eds.), Europe in Exile: European Exile Communities in Britain 1940–45 (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001). 4  For example, Kaiser, Christian Democracy, 119–62; Pauli Heikkilä, ‘Baltic Proposals for European Unification during World War II’, Latvijas Vēstures Institūta Žurnāls 91, no. 2 (2014): 63–93; Lynne Olson, Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War (New York: Random House, 2017).

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Further shaping these blueprints was the fact that while after 1945 much of Western Europe was liberated from Nazi rule, much of Eastern Europe emerged under Soviet rule. In hindsight the Cold War seems inevitable, but there were in fact two or three years of hopeful expectation that a general peace might be realised before in 1947/48 the Iron Curtain eventually divided the continent. It was only at this point that emigrants began once again seriously to consider the benefits of a union of Central and Eastern Europe which, they hoped, could help bolster broader Western anti-communist efforts and ultimately secure their future as a tightly knit group of peaceful, democratic states. The desire to blend unification—a term which, as explored below, was at times interpreted rather differently—with liberation was perhaps most clearly embodied in the work of the Polish political activist Józef Retinger. As the inaugural Secretary General of the European Movement (EM), Retinger envisaged civic movements throughout the continent promoting closer European ties and was one of several prominent Eastern European exiles who helped organise the Congress of Europe in The Hague in May 1948 leading to the foundation of the Council of Europe a year later.5 While this was indicative of the EM’s political mission, it also had an economic and cultural component. To this end, emigrants joined the Central-East European Commission established in the spring of 1949 within the framework of the EM, with future British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, its foundational chair and Retinger serving as honorary treasurer.6 True is that this Commission was initially rather active. A major breakthrough came at the EM conference in London in January 1952. The political resolution accepted at the conference emphasised the role of emigrants in contributing to the formulation of a ‘United Europe’ of some kind. More significant was that it spoke of the duty of Eastern European countries and peoples which, once liberated, could go on to carry the torch of liberation and unification. By first cooperating among themselves and then participating in Europe-wide organisations, it was felt that ‘the countries of Central and Eastern Europe would assure their

5  Joseph Retinger and John Pomian, Memoirs of an Eminence Grise (Brighton: Sussex University Press, 1972), 206, 239; Lane and Wolanski, Poland and European Integration. 6  M.B.B.  Biskupski, War and Diplomacy in East and West Europe: A Biography of Józef Retinger (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 259–60.

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future economic development, the enjoyment of freedom and social justice, as well as their common defense’.7 The seeds for the Central European federation proposal, then, had been planted. And yet as Georgi Mihov Dimitrov, the Secretary General of the IPU, would later remark, ‘after 1952, the Central-East European Commission became a kind of Sleeping Beauty, waiting for some Prince Charming to wake her with his kisses’.8 For while no doubt ambitious, both disagreements between emigrant groups and the divergent visions of the West and the East limited the number of concrete initiatives that would emerge.9 One of the few tangible ideas to come out of the Commission was the plan for a Central and Eastern European Coal and Steel Community, an idea drafted in 1953 by a team of Polish economists headed by Edward Raczyński. Drawing on the model devised by the six members of the ECSC, this envisaged establishing a common management structure for the extraction of raw material from Silesia—an area incorporating large parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia—and its transportation to the Baltic Sea. The possible inclusion of Hungary in turn emphasised the need to expand to other fields such as agriculture and electricity. The eventual goal was ‘a fully-fledged economic union’ that would welcome new members as cooperation deepened. As a first step, it was envisioned that those countries involved would need to undergo a period of industrialisation in order to encourage cooperation at the local level, since the process would require cooperation across national borders which could then support broadening ties to other fields. But it would also help raise the economic performance of the countries of Central Eastern Europe to the level of those in the West, making institutional cooperation with the ECSC more likely. The two Coal and Steel Communities, it was speculated, might even join with Britain to make ‘a united Europe based on sound and stable foundations’. Not only would this have clear commercial benefits but it also promised to tackle any possible resurgent

7  ‘The London Conference’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union 1/2 (1952), 22–6. 8   ‘The Struggle for Freedom and United Europe Falters’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union (Jan–Feb 1964), 7–11; ‘The Political Thinking of Western Europe’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union (May–June 1964), 3–5. 9  Retinger and Pomian, Memoirs, 239–41; Andrew Defty, Britain, America and AntiCommunist Propaganda, 1945–53: The Information Research Department (London: Routledge, 2004).

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nationalism, which the draft plan called ‘a powerful centrifugal force’ obstructing international cooperation.10 In the event, though, this would remain a draft. And while other forums for émigrés to meet did admittedly exist in these early years, their success in terms of tangible outcomes was similarly limited. One such alternate forum for emigrants interested in federalism was the Central European Federal Clubs set up originally in London in 1940, re-established in 1945 with finance from the British government and which in May 1950 morphed into the Central European Federal Movement.11 But while these did foster a degree of unity among emigrants and even spread elsewhere to the likes of Rome, Paris and Brussels, their effectiveness was hampered by re-emigration across the Atlantic. Cooperation among emigrants consequently took its most consistent form in the much narrower Czechoslovak-Polish Research Committee, joined later by Hungarians emigrants, which regularly published the journal Central European Federalist between 1953 and 1972.12 The tendency of émigrés to gravitate towards the United States did admittedly bring with it another opportunity for Central and Eastern European figures to organise anew. Amid the developing Cold War, American authorities in fact saw an opportunity to exploit the recently arrived emigrants and in 1949 swiftly formed the Free Europe Committee (FEC)—what was in effect a front organisation funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—in order to accelerate these links.13 On 11 February 1951 they issued the so-called Philadelphia Declaration, the last point of which stressed the desire of Central Europeans to establish ‘among themselves strong ties of a federal character and of joining in the formation of a United Europe’. This was perceived as the only solution to restoring peace on the European continent and would require abolishing 10   Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, London, Edward Raczyński papers, KOL 23/H/219, ‘Draft plan for a Central and Eastern European Coal and Steel Community’, October 1953. 11  Jonathan Levy, The Intermarium: Wilson, Madison, and East Central European Federalism (Boca Raton, FL: Universal-Publishers, 2007), 257–8. 12  Thomas Lane, ‘An Historical Epilogue: East Europeans and the European Movement’, in Thomas Lane and Elěbieta Stadtmüller (eds.), Europe on the Move: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on the European Union (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005), 195–6; Łukasiewicz, Third Europe, 109–10, 244–51. 13  For more see i.e. Katalin Kádár-Lynn (ed.), The Inauguration of “Organized Political Warfare”: The Cold War Organizations Sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe/Free Europe Committee (Saint Helena, CA: Helena History Press, 2013).

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customs borders and integrating their countries into the world economy. It would also oblige the relevant countries to restore liberties for the peasantry and the working class. The nature of the federation was spelt out as thus: ‘Such a fraternal federation must prize and respect the distinctive values of each nation, for the common good of our European civilisation and for the cultural heritage of mankind throughout the world.’14 Nevertheless, further disputes among émigrés prevented them from developing this declaration further. This did not stop the FEC from again gathering together emigrants in October 1953, this time to study various aspects of unification extending behind the Iron Curtain. The FEC even arranged panels tasked with considering Europe-wide transportation needs and the building of new markets with the aim of showing émigrés and officials from Western Europe the possible benefits of forging a large united continent in the model of the United States.15 But this had few practical results beyond bringing some of the emigrants together for a common cause. Formal cooperation among exiled Central and Eastern Europeans only really emerged in September 1954 with the creation of the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), an organisation funded by the FEC and housed in New York. From the beginning, this paid considerable attention to the question of European unity and saw as a future the need for a strong, federal all-European bloc. The ACEN even organised special sessions in Strasbourg to coincide with meetings of Council of Europe and issued numerous resolutions stressing the importance of the Central and Eastern European region in any future political and economic plans for unifying the European continent.16 Even then, though, its main target was to raise the profile of Central and Eastern Europe in the United Nations (UN). While it became a significant body for technical advice and information to that end, interest from émigrés themselves always vacillated. It was hence an inauspicious environment in which the proposals for a Central European federation were subsequently to develop.

 ‘Ten points of the Philadelphia Declaration’, Liberation and Union (1952), 24.  Anna Mazurkiewicz, ‘“Join, or Die”: The Road to Cooperation Among East European Exiled Political Leaders in the United States, 1949–1954’, Polish American Studies 2 (2012): 5–43, here 32–4; Łukasiewicz, Third Europe, 83–5, 257. 16  Mazurkiewicz, ‘Join, or Die’, 40–1. 14 15

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‘You’ve Got to Fight for Your Right to Party’ Throughout all this, émigrés often viewed and discussed plans to establish closer links in Central and Eastern Europe via international party organisations. Among them, the International Peasant Union was the most characteristically Eastern European.17 It had roots in the International Agrarian Bureau—a coalition of parties drawn from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia—of the interwar period, and cooperation among its adherents reappeared in exile first during the Second World War and later amid the Cold War. Even before its official inauguration, a group calling itself the Union of Eastern European Agrarian Parties had met in Paris and agreed on a resolution welcoming the Marshall Plan of American dollar assistance. This, the document declared, was ‘indispensable for the economic rehabilitation of Eastern as well as Western Europe’ and key to creating a pan-European unit that was economically, politically and culturally integrated. Pointedly, the resolution excluded the Soviet Union from this framework, since it was seen as suppressing Eastern European nations.18 The IPU was eventually established in New York in May 1948. Article 24 of its foundational programme justified its transnational dimension ‘in view the eventual federation not only of the small nations into regional units—such as Balkan, Danubian and Eastern-European federations—but also the whole European Continent which constitutes a cultural, social, economic, political and strategic unit’. The article went still further and referred to the Atlantic Charter and the UN as representing platforms of ‘an adequately organized, peaceful, democratic civilized world—a world of sincere cooperation dedicated to the constructive use of its resources and the coordination of activities in the interest of the general cultural, economic and social welfare of mankind’.19 The final goal, it stated, was therefore a global government comprising distinct, deeply unified national units. To this end, the first IPU congress of 1950 issued a further 17  Arkadiusz Indraszczyk, ‘The Cooperation of Peasant Parties from Central and Eastern Europe in Exile after 1945’, in Anna Mazurkiewicz (ed.), East Central Europe in Exile, Vol. 2: Transatlantic Identities (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 193–225; Łukasiewicz, Third Europe, 85–8, 263–5. 18  International Peasant Union (hereafter IPU), The Battle of the Peasantry for Freedom and Democracy. First and Second Congresses of the Reconstituted Peasant International (Washington, D.C.: IPU, 1950), 14. 19  Ibid., 24. Also, ‘Program’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union 1 (1950), 34.

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resolution explaining both what it meant by ‘European integration’ and the methods it thought necessary to reach this goal. First needed was ‘the restoration of the independence of the nations of Eastern Europe’; thereafter the objective would be ‘the creation of a European federation’. Neither goal—national independence followed by European federation— was seen as contradictory; rather, ‘such an international system is capable of providing ample guarantees for the integrity and independence of all nations large and small’. This meant some form of looser, intergovernmental cooperation or a community restricted to the six ECSC members— Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Italy, the Netherlands and West Germany—was not enough. Instead there existed ‘the necessity of achieving European unity by means of regional and continental federations’.20 Whereas the IPU was exclusively an exile organisation, others were aligned with broader international party organisations such as the Socialist International (SI), whose establishment in 1951 is discussed in more detail in this volume  by Ettore Costa. Interestingly, in some cases, the subregional Central and Eastern European party families predated the birth of these wider global (and arguably Western-dominated) organisations. The SUCEE, for instance, gathered together social democratic exiles as early as November 1948.21 Arguably more interesting is the degree to which, despite this party alignment, the SUCEE shared many common assumptions with the IPU. The SUCEE’s first formal meeting in June 1949 for instance stated that it aimed modestly at ‘the friendly co-operation of the people of the Central and Eastern Europe within the framework of a free and democratic Europe’.22 European integration, in other words, was very much part of its thinking from the off. Little surprise then that this conference should also issue a resolution declaring ‘its support of efforts to establish the closest European unity on a democratic basis, and in the service of economic and social progress’ where the ‘restoration of political and national independence to Central and South-East European

20  IPU, The Battle of the Peasantry, 19. Also, ‘Our Task’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union 1 (1950), 2–3. 21  Anna Siwik, ‘Cooperation among East European Émigres. The Socialist Case’, in Mazurkiewicz, East Central Europe in Exile, 177–92; Łukasiewicz, Third Europe, 97–8. 22  International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam (hereafter IISH), Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe (hereafter SUCEE)-1, ‘Resolution passed at a conference of East European exiled Socialists, Fulham’, 29 November 1948.

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countries’ was emphasised as a prerequisite for such a goal.23 Also like the IPU, the SUCEE was careful early on to delineate precisely what it meant by integration. It did so in the form of a report drafted by the Czech politician Vilem Bernard for the 1951 SUCEE conference in Frankfurt. Entitled ‘Central-Eastern Europe and European Unity’, this began by criticising at a broad level the form of integration taking shape in the ECSC: ‘Without introducing authorities of international parliamentary control, Europe, administrated by authorities composed of bureaucrats alone, could turn into what might be called a managerial superstate.’ A resolution from the conference itself would further state unashamedly that ‘European unity can be achieved only by participation of the Central and Eastern European region’.24 The progress of Western European integration was thus deemed insufficient both in terms of its powers and institutions and in terms of its membership. On top of this were more specifically social democratic concerns about the shape of European integration. The SUCEE, Bernard’s report insisted, ought to oppose the type of technical cooperation devoid of a strong legislatorial body that was for him characteristic of the ECSC by proposing its own alternative. He and his colleagues consequently envisioned ‘fully-­ fledged federation’ of public ownership of key industries and joint economic planning. In this regard, it was thought important for social democratic emigrants to begin articulating in concrete terms now what a future federation should look like. In one respect this was typical of its anti-communist sentiments and the belief that workers would suffer rather than benefit from state socialism. As Bernard’s report surmised it, ‘The danger exists that the activities of reactionary political forces in this field could compromise the cause of European unity in the eyes of the working class in the Iron Curtain countries’.25 But it was also a comment seemingly made with one eye on the fact that other emigrant groups were themselves considering the exact same issue. A degree of party competition from within the emigrant community was thus beginning to creep in. To this end, the SUCEE announced itself ‘ready to take part in all democratic 23  IISH/SUCEE-1, ‘Report on the conference of socialist parties from Central- and South Eastern Europe, London’, 4–5 June 1949. 24  IISH/SUCEE-2, ‘Resolution Our Tasks in Exile, adopted by the fifth conference of the SUCEE in Frankfort’, 27–28 June 1951; SUCEE, Unity – Prelude to Freedom. The Origin and Aims of the Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe (London: SUCEE, 1952), 9–10. 25  IISH/SUCEE-2, ‘Central-Eastern Europe and European unity. Background report prepared by Vilem Bernard’, 27–28 June 1951.

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organisations working for European unity’, where they were keen to avoid right-wing representation that would, they maintained, weaken the appeal of the unification idea.26 The Committee of Liberal Exiles, for its part, was founded in London in May 1949. A month later it reported on its early activities, which included ‘establishing contacts with other international organisations working towards a Free and United Europe of all European countries’. In the next month, the CLE sent greetings to the congress of their main organisation, the Liberal International (LI), reminding them that their ‘countries form a constituent part of Europe’ and that ‘a United Europe is inconceivable without their actual membership and participation in all organisations working for and towards European Unity’. Put another way, the CLE likewise regarded the process of European integration to be a matter concerned with more than simply the countries of Western Europe. Consequently, they wanted this message to be included in the resolution of the congress as a goal for other liberal parties.27 In August 1951, they reinforced this advice by stating that European integration needed to be a process that embraced both sides of the Iron Curtain, a further resolution ‘recalling and emphasising the necessity of a reunited Europe, without which no lasting peace and prosperity can be achieved’.28 The CLE made similar references on other occasions. For example, a memorandum on Eastern European refugees in 1950 indicated ‘that our ultimate aim is the establishment of a free United Europe’. This envisioned emigrants as bridge-builders after liberation from Soviet rule, and this thus justified their seeking continuing support from Western governments.29 The Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe was founded in New York in July 1950. Its constitution similarly included as an aim the ‘integration of Central European into [a] democratic United Europe’, again presupposing first the liberation of these countries from Soviet rule.30 But during its opening international congress in March 1953, CDUCE chair Jozsef Kozi Horvath was to offer a more individualistic  SUCEE, Unity – Prelude to Freedom, 3.  Archiv des Liberalismus (hereafter AdL), Liberal International (hereafter LI) 10415/3, ‘Report’, 3 June 1949. 28  Ibid., ‘Report’, August 1951. 29  ‘Memorandum’, Third Force no. 3 (1950), 22–3. 30   Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe (hereafter CDUCE), Freedom: Prerequisite to Lasting Peace (New York: CDUCE, 1957), 161; Łukasiewicz, Third Europe, 88–93, 265–71. 26 27

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take on Central and Eastern European federation. On the face of it his demand that there be ‘a plan projecting a realistic and attractive future for Central European peoples liberated from Soviet domination, a plan assuring self-determination to great and small nations, a plan enabling them to form closer or looser regional ties through which they may enter the prospective United States of Europe’ was not in itself unusual.31 Looked at in more detail, though, the notion that ties could be either loose or close suggested ‘unification’ was more widely interpreted by the CDUCE than other coalitions. What is more, Horvath would go on to define these tasks as ‘an ideological platform’. Further discussions would similarly describe how ‘the ambitious idea of an [sic] European Federation and eventually of a United Europe’ was inherently and profoundly Christian democratic.32 This suggested that the CDUCE also saw a potential federation of Central and Eastern European countries as far more a political or ideological project than one for the mere good of the nations and subregions which it included. In some ways this was no surprise. Even during the Second World War, Christian Democrat émigrés favoured connections with their ideological foreign counterparts over fostering links with their own countrymen of opposing political persuasions. These contacts remained when the Western Europeans returned home and later in June 1947 founded the Nouvelles Équipes internationales (NEI) both as a way to help fight communism and to support European cooperation underscored by Christian values.33 At the NEI international congress in Salzburg in September 1955, the CDUCE’s Polish Secretary General, Konrad Sieniewicz, spoke about interconnections of personal freedom and European unity. He stressed the importance of friendship with America but only if ‘Europe’ could stand on its own: ‘A United Europe, a balanced continent, wholeheartedly devoted to the preservation of peace and the broadening of cultural horizons’ could harness the new technology and protect itself.34 All this was possible thanks to the fact that assimilation of Eastern European emigrants into the Western Christian Democratic networks occurred much more easily when compared to other party coalitions. It was a trusted network of individuals all fiercely anti-communist and well known to each other since at least the  CDUCE, Freedom, 45.  Ibid., 74–6. 33  Kaiser, Christian Democracy, 128, 195–8. 34  CDUCE, Freedom, 101–2. 31 32

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war. But its real significance was that, unlike, say, for the SUCEE or the CLE, this system offered the CDUCE direct access to parties who were in power in most Western European countries.35

Regions Within and Versus Europe From the beginning, in other words, there were subtle but important differences between each of the main party coalitions despite the shared goal of unification in which the countries of Central and Eastern European, free from Soviet rule, were expected to play a key role. These differences were to become more obvious as thoughts turned to the geographical, institutional and programmatic scope of any Central and Eastern European bloc. At the EM conference on Eastern Europe in London in January 1952, Dimitrov of the IPU delivered a rather long report on ‘democratic reconstruction of agriculture in a United Europe’, which emphasised the peasantry as the foundation for the future of the continent. He outlined a specific agenda to re-establish agricultural trade in the aftermath of liberation from Soviet rule. The proposal included mechanisms to exchange information but also foresaw the ‘elaboration of a general coordinated plan’ at all levels of agricultural production. This would require de-­ collectivisation, which would be carried out by all member countries in unison. Financing this and the ‘modernisation, mechanisation and electrification’ of agriculture as Dimitrov envisaged would, moreover, entail establishing a new credit institution. This, the Secretary General detailed, would help coordinate investments and create a ‘uniform monetary system’ throughout the region following the model of the European Payments Union. The result would be ‘the creation of a Central-Eastern European pool of agricultural products on the basis of cooperative exchange with the rest of the world’. Dimitrov calmed those listeners concerned that the IPU appeared to support central planning, which for them was a discredited strategy deployed by totalitarian regimes, by suggesting that he would hope to execute the policy based on voluntary cooperation and while mindful of private property interests. The report which followed was accepted into the agricultural resolution of the conference, although reference to monetary union—which also aroused disquiet from the audience—was dropped. Curiously, it was included half a year later in a  Kaiser, Christian Democracy, 166–7.

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separate resolution passed by the IPU congress, although this by contrast downplayed mention of planning.36 The emphasis on agricultural cooperation almost automatically paved the way to the IPU supporting a solution comprising all Central and Eastern European states. The resolution of the IPU congress foresaw difficulties in the transition from a totalitarian society, but ‘a proper integration of these countries into the greater unity of Europe can be attained by creating a Central-Eastern European Federation composed—according to necessity and in accordance with the free will of the peoples—of regional units’. The resolution welcomed the preparatory work already initiated in exile to decrease these potential challenges.37 All this saw the gap with the SUCEE’s position beginning to widen. In yet another report, Bernard defined the SUCEE’s view of unity in Eastern Europe as a product of learning lessons from a past where their countries had failed to protect themselves. The result was that they were all now suffering from the similar Sovietisation of the economy; after liberation from Soviet rule, they were hence deemed likely all to face similar problems and require similar solutions. This for Bernard meant establishing ‘permanent forms of lasting co-operation. Special Central European authorities will have to be set up.’ Although Western European organisations like the ECSC offered a model, Bernard noted, this had to be improved upon through greater parliamentary supervision to avoid ‘bureaucratic deformation of the over-centralized economic life’. Instead of establishing a central authority, he therefore concluded that it might be more beneficial to instead concentrate on increasing economic relations and fostering a friendly atmosphere among nations.38 While the subsequent discussion reiterated the SUCEE’s support for ‘a general European unity’, its Europeanism was hence clearly beginning to gain new nuances. Indeed, the SUCEE now promoted smaller unions premised on ‘geographical position, past experience, recent economic 36  ‘Democratic Reconstruction of Agriculture in a United Europe’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union nos. 1–2 (1952), 15–22; ‘The London Conference’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union nos. 1–2 (1952), 22–6; ‘Resolution on Internal Affairs and Agrarian Problems’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union no. 5 (1952), 45–7. 37  ‘Resolution on International Affairs’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union no. 5 (1952), 44–5. 38  IISH/SUCEE-2, ‘Central-Eastern Europe and European unity. Background report prepared by Vilem Bernard’, 27–28 June 1951.

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transformations and common problems’. This pointed to a multilevel federation: several much more localised federations (such as Baltic, Danubian and Balkan) centred around freely elected multi-state parliaments, which then formed part of a Central/Eastern Europe-wide federation, which in turn was itself incorporated into a pan-European unit along with Western European countries. As part of this, the SUCEE even speculated that it might be necessary to establish a neutral zone in Central Europe, which arguably ran the risk of leaving a great portion of the area under communist rule.39 The idea for these lower-level unions emerged from Baltic socialist parties, which had assembled at a conference in Copenhagen in the spring of 1950 to declare their common struggle against anti-democratic forces both back home and in exile. One of the methods proposed to aid in this struggle was to support the future-liberated Baltic states joining a broader European union as one.40 A few years later, the SUCEE took up the baton and initiated three regional working groups to assess the benefits of forming smaller subregional federations in the Baltic, Danube and Balkans.41 There is little information in the archives about socialist party support for the latter two plans. However, the Baltic socialist parties retained an interest in the concept and issued a joint declaration in June 1956. The parties found in each other similarities both in terms of their Western heritage and also their Eastern threat and proposed ‘the closer alliance of the Baltic countries’. Building on their historic connections, the Baltic countries, the declaration stated, should ‘seek a place in unified Europe along the line of the general provisions governing European unification’. The parties set the principles of their ‘union’, which were to consist of a common currency, defence strategy, foreign policy and common legislation; a coherent attitude on social issues was mentioned as a particularly important area of common interest, but the declaration was careful not to exclude any other field. The final point was that this would all be underscored by ‘close cultural cooperation among the Baltic nations to further cement their harmonious coexistence’. The practical aspects of the plan were left general on purpose, because ‘the questions regarding the degree and form of such a union [is] to be settled by the liberated Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian  SUCEE, Unity – Prelude to Freedom, 30–3.  ‘The Conference of the Baltic Socialist Parties’, Labour’s Call no. 3 (May–June 1950), 3–4. 41  IISH/SUCEE-4, ‘Minutes of the SUCEE conference in Stockholm’, 12–13 July 1953. 39 40

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nations themselves under democratic conditions and by democratic means’. The parties merely declared their intention to work together for that goal.42 This idea was to remain in currency for some time to come. For instance, in 1957 the Lithuanian exile, Jonas Glemza, and his Estonian counterpart, Johannes Mihkelson, maintained within the SUCEE that ‘a Baltic Federation should cause no special difficulties’. The Latvian Felix Cielens likewise proposed ‘a federal Baltic state for the defence of their freedom and for the promotion of their economic development’. Quite exceptionally, he envisioned the Baltic states as a neutralised territory, which would allow free access to the Baltic Sea for the Russians—thereby eradicating the threat of Soviet expansionism. Others in the SUCEE, though, were less confident and questioned the compatibility of these ‘local’ integration schemes with a pan-European one.43 Additionally, a report in July 1955 condemned such plans as wholly unrealistic; a collective security pact was presented as a better option.44 These sorts of arguments were much less a feature of CDUCE gatherings, but they were not entirely absent. One such example is the speech in 1953 delivered by the Lithuanian geographer Kazys Pakštas, a member of the Central European Federal Movement, who remarked that ‘If the nations of Western Europe desire a broad union, the peoples of Middle Europe need a federal union’. Pakštas defined why he thought this was the case, emphasising the urgency to defend the Central European countries and the likelihood that federalisation at this level could easily spread to the rest of the continent. Taking Switzerland, the United States and the British Commonwealth as archetypes, the Central Europe he imagined would become a guardian of Christian civilisation and of all mankind.45 For many within the CDUCE, however, it was federalism at the continental rather than local level that represented the best way forward. Its second congress in 1957 again confirmed the CDUCE’s belief that European unification ought to be welcomed and that equally vital was a Central contribution to this in order to safeguard ‘the political, economic and cultural balance of  ‘Unity of the Baltic States’, Labour’s Call (February 1956), 1–3.  Felix Cielens, ‘The International Baltic Problem: The European Importance of the Free Baltic Sea’, Labour’s Call (April 1957), 6–8; ‘Points from the Debate on European unity’, Labour’s Call (August 1958), 7–10. 44  IISH/SUCEE-6, ‘SUCEE conference, London: Report by Serban Voinea: European unity and the Soviet-Dominated Countries’, 10–11 July 1955. 45  CDUCE, Freedom, 58–9. 42 43

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Europe’. Integrating the region into a Europe-wide structure was ‘an indispensable precondition if Europe is to survive as an essential element in world structure’. As anti-communism was prominent in the CDUCE’s other declarations, it only vaguely referred to each nation’s right to have a state and choice of government. And this notion, the congress decided, should apply not simply to Europe but ‘should embrace all nations and organize them on varying levels of co-operation from regional to continental and up to the world society’. Besides advancing their vision of global federalism, the CDUCE differed from other exile parties with respect to their appeal to strong leadership. According to the CDUCE, ‘federalism and supranational authority are interdependent elements by their very nature’. Member parties of the CDUCE thus chose to ‘commit themselves to the limitations of national sovereignty as a necessary condition for general peace and freedom’. Furthermore, the CDUCE defined ‘unlimited sovereignty [as] the chief impediment to the realisation of federalism, as far as it implies the power to launch war in order to achieve national aims which cannot be attained by peaceful means’. In practice this meant the CDUCE wanted to see ‘a supra-national authority’, with police forces and an army to both protect the federation from foreign attack but also to contain harmful forces within it. Authority, it maintained, should in turn be extended to all three branches of government. Despite demands for individual freedoms, the resolution relied on strong government: ‘There can be no federal structure without supranational authority; there can be no such authority without nations united on a federal basis.’ The CDUCE’s definition of federalism saw it sit between two extremes: nationalism and internationalism. The former exaggerated ‘the egoistic interests of one nation against the legitimate rights of another’, and the latter aimed ‘to obliterate the national cultural life, separate peoples from their historic traditions and heritage’ while embracing ‘mechanical civilisation’. Federalism—for the CDUCE a sort of middle ground—took their best elements and ‘unit[ed] the creative forces which emanate from national values with the obligation which every society bears toward mankind’. This surprisingly globalist view was shared among Christian democrats in general.46

 Ibid., 77–8, 145–6; Kaiser, Christian Democracy, 154–5, 188–9.

46

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The West: And the Rest The Monthly Bulletin of the IPU reported frequently on the development of Western European integration and American involvement. Marshall Aid, as mentioned earlier, was initially appreciated as a ‘democratic plan for reconstruction’ and was considered ‘vital [for the] political and economic interests of our people’ that it should ‘impose cooperation [on] the Western European nations’.47 The European Recovery Program, as it was officially called, and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) established to administer it, was also celebrated in the IPU congress in 1950, welcomed with ‘sincere admiration to the American people for this bountiful act of enlightened responsibility and international leadership’.48 The Schuman Declaration creating the ECSC was likewise greeted with pleasure. Although it was acknowledged to have an economic basis such as liquidation of cartels, the IPU understood well that the benefits would go wider: ‘German revival would take place within the framework of an economically united Western Europe that might look forward to political unity also.’49 The third IPU congress in 1952 even went so far as to call the ECSC ‘the first practical and effective steps towards the goal of a United Europe’. Yet doubts, bordering at times on disinterest, about the scope and powers of the ECSC and its institutions were setting in. The IPU went some way to stress ‘the fact that the real unity of Europe can be attained only by including, after liberation, the countries now under communist oppression’. Consequently, it demanded ‘that the representatives of these countries be given appropriate places in every organisation and body concerned with the future of Europe’.50 This criticism dated back to as early as spring 1950, when Dimitrov heavily criticised the form that the Six’s integration project was taking. Although he was happy to see greater efforts being made to overcome old rivalries, the ECSC, he claimed, was lacking ‘mutual respect and political, cultural and economic cooperation by all nations’, which could be harmful even if the creation of the organisation itself would succeed. That the Eastern Europeans were missing seemed only his secondary concern. His main complaint was that the integration process  IPU, The Battle of the Peasantry, 14.  Ibid., 18–9. 49  ‘Schuman Plan’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union no. 3 (1951), 18. 50  ‘Resolution on International Affairs’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union no. 5 (1952), 44–5. 47 48

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appeared to be ‘handed down from the top rather than a swelling outcry from the hearts of the people themselves furnishing the driving force to unify the continent’. The leaders of the Six had a decisive role to initiate the change, he mentioned, but it needed the support from the masses to be truly successful: ‘The effort to unify Europe today is still in the hands of the statesmen and not of the people.’ Dimitrov likewise criticised the Council of Europe, which he indicated had failed to draw on the necessary popular support to turn it into an effective organisation; its only positive achievement, it seemed, was its existence.51 This was symptomatic of a broader concern within the emigrant political community that the West was not taking seriously the idea that European unity ought to proceed with the Central and Eastern European states as a central component. This became still more a worry after the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953 and the period of decreased tensions in international relations that would initially follow. For the CLE, the immediate easing of East-West relations represented an opportunity to liberate their countries from Soviet rule. As they explained in a resolution sent to the LI, ‘Only when the now oppressed European peoples regain their freedom can United Europe become liberal, free, and prosperous, and a new era of spiritual as well as material revival dawn’. The resolution further wondered how those European countries behind the Iron Curtain could be allowed to be suppressed, when ‘backward countries’ in other continents were breaking their chains—by which they meant former European colonies—thereby revealing their own prejudices and Eurocentrism.52 This naturally did not please the LI, which was transforming from a European organisation to attract politicians and popularity in the decolonised third world. But this was to lead to a further memorandum from the CLE which announced that it was ‘disturbed at the policy of appeasement’ followed by the LI and other Western governments. According to the CLE, the appeasement was considered a sign of weakness by the Soviet leaders—and by the oppressed people. Rather than engaging with the Soviet Union, their belief was rather the need to upend the balance of power between it and small European powers and Western Europe itself. However unrealistic this might prove in practice, unification

51  ‘The Peasant Movements and Unification of Europe’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union no. 3 (1950), 10–2. 52  AdL/LI 10512/3, ‘Proclamation’, April 1953.

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under a common law and rules, rather than engagement with Moscow, was a preferable solution.53 Liberation and unification were thus again intimately linked. The CLE for instance reasoned with its colleagues in the LI that, without liberation of Eastern Europe, ‘a peaceful solution to European problems cannot be found, and the economic and social problems of Western Europe cannot successfully be solved’. It expressed the fear of sacrificing the Eastern half of the continent to Russian demands. Instead, ‘the European Union which is to be created, should in the end include Central and Eastern European countries at present behind the Iron Curtain’. The uprisings in the region were pointed to as showing the persistent desire to leave Soviet (‘Moscovite’) way of life and indication that countries such as Hungary inherently belonged to Western civilisation.54 The SUCEE also began to grow frustrated with the actions of their Western colleagues. Bernard described the SI congress in Milan 1952 as ‘no great encouragement for us’. The congress ‘did not reiterate the requirement of free elections’ in the Eastern bloc and additionally Central Eastern Europe was evaluated ‘in none too favourable a way’. This, he complained, was caused and exacerbated by the fact that Western politicians had become too enamoured by policy of de-Stalinisation and Moscow’s perceived openness towards the West, which had exposed differences between Central Eastern Europeans emigrants who hoped to overthrow the system of Soviet rule and Western officials—including social democrats—who, according to Bernard, were content simply to cope with.55 There was, then, discord on various fronts: between Central Eastern European coalitions about the form and best path towards their own federation; between émigrés and their Western counterparts about the virtues of tolerating continued Soviet rule; and between them and Western Europeans both about the institutional form of integration schemes like the ECSC and the place of the Central and Eastern European countries within these. Some cause for optimism was found in organisations like the Western European Union, which the vice-chair of the CLE, Tadeusz 53  AdL/LI 10415/3, ‘Memorandum: European Unity, European Movement and role of Russia and Germany in international politics’, undated. 54  AdL/LI 10512/3, Minutes of CLE meeting, 7 August 1953; Ibid., ‘Report’, 20 April 1953; Ibid, ‘Report’, 7 January 1955. 55  IISH/SUCEE-4, ‘International situation. SUCEE conference in Stockholm’, 12–13 July 1953.

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Kunicki, hailed as a step towards a united Europe because it kept British forces in continental Europe and integrated the West German military within a common structure.56 But his Estonian colleagues made the opposite, and in retrospect correct, conclusion that West German rearmament was the final blow to the division of Europe.57 It was the feeling of frustration, and in a bid to have the emigrant voice heard, that in December 1954 the SUCEE floated the idea of a joint conference with the IPU, CDUCE and CLE, in order ‘to strengthen democratic principles and to exchange views on the future regional unification of Central-Eastern Europe’. Half a year later, ‘favourable replies accepting in principle the idea […] have already been received’.58 While the CLE’s interest faded, correspondence between the three remaining party coalitions continued well into mid-1959. One of the three proposed common stances binding them was the sense of needing to build ‘federative or confederative links between the people of Central Europe’. This perspective, they agreed, should be promoted among various other exiles and Western leaders, and communicated by radio across the Iron Curtain. So too should they think about finding common ground by promoting unity within their home countries. And they likewise concluded ‘in view of the shortcomings of all previous efforts to organize exile from different Central European countries and from different political trends, it is proposed that the initial discussion be held in a very restricted group’. Eventually the cooperation resulted only in the June 1960 appeal for Western governments to push for free elections to be held in Eastern European countries, without any corresponding reference to European unification.59 This did not dissuade some from continuing to undertake more low-­ key bids to promote the idea of a pan-European federation, at least in the short term. According to the Lithuanian liberal Stasys Zymantas, it was in fact critical that emigrants continued to ‘put forward the idea of a United States of Europe in which a place would be secured for the now occupied  ‘German rearmament’, World Liberalism no. 4 (1954), 12–5.  Pauli Heikkilä, Estonians for Europe: National Activism for European Integration, 1922–1991 (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2014), 155–6. 58  IISH/SUCEE-5, ‘Minutes of the executive committee of the SUCEE’, 19 December 1954; IISH/SUCEE-6, ‘Report on activities 1953–1955’, 10 July 1955. 59  IISH/SUCEE-10, Letter from the CDUCE, 16 July 1959; IISH/SUCEE-11, SUCEE letter to all member parties, 3 June 1960; ‘Appeal to the free world’, Labour’s Call (June 1960), 8–9. 56 57

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countries’ because the very existence of any proposal—regardless of whether generally accepted by emigrants or not—‘would become a strong weapon itself in countering Soviet propaganda’.60 The IPU more generally concurred: any discussion of there being a unified Central and Eastern European bloc within a pan-European federal system, so a resolution agreed at its 1952 congress delineated, could help in ‘inspiring the peoples of hope and confidence that their resistance and struggle for liberty and democracy are not in vain’.61 Various blueprints would thus continue to trickle out in the publications of the resistance and dissidents. This, though, was little thanks to intentional broadcasting: indeed, Radio Free Europe—overseen by the FEC—did not mention the unification plan at all until the 1980s.62

The Final Divide A mixture of disagreement among the emigrant community and disinterest from other quarters was always likely to weaken the push for a Central and Eastern European federation. Wider events towards the latter half of the 1950s effectively sealed its fate, making calls for unification seem futile. The IPU had admittedly organised its fifth congress in Paris in October 1956 with the full expectation of discussing revised plans for a federation. Indeed, the title of the meeting was ‘the Congress of European Unity’. But events in Hungary inevitably changed the topic under discussion, and only a few references to European unification were eventually made. The resolution which emerged only modestly demanded ‘the right to join a United Europe to which we belong by tradition and culture’. At the same time, the resolution on internal agrarian affairs stressed the widening gap in standards of living and social structure between the two halves of Europe, which seemed to make a united Central Eastern bloc joining a wider European federation harder to justify.63 A month later, the three main Christian democratic blocs—the CDUCE, the NEI and the Latin American-centred Christian Democratic Organization of America (in  AdL, LI 10512/3. Report, 3 January 1953.  ‘Resolution on International Affairs’, Monthly Bulletin of International Peasant Union no. 5 (1952), 44–5. 62  Thomas Lane, ‘East European Exiles and their Interpretations of the Meaning of Europe’, in José Faraldo et al. (eds.), Europe in the Eastern Bloc. Imaginations and Discourses (1945–1991) (Köln: Böhlau, 2008), 304. 63  IPU, Fifth Congress, 28–30 October 1956: Peasants and Communism (Paris: IPU, 1956). 60 61

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Spanish known as the Organización Demócrata Cristiana de América)— came together for the first time in Paris to discuss the creation of a worldwide Christian democratic organisation.64 Hungary likewise dominated the conference and saw all three factions condemn the recent events in Eastern Europe; officials also criticised dictatorships in Latin American and elsewhere. The resolutions did not directly refer to Eastern Europe, but general reference was made to ‘reaffirming the indivisibility of Europe’.65 Among socialists, the idea of a Central and Eastern European unification was still discussed but with less enthusiasm. The report ‘European unity and the Soviet-dominated countries’, primed ahead of the conference in 1955, made clear a number of the SUCEE’s preferences on the matter. The first demand was full sovereignty in addition to the withdrawal of Soviet forces and democratic elections. As one speaker remarked, ‘Liberation would be not only the first step towards a European solution but would at the same time mean the return to Europe’.66 Two years later, though, the nascent Treaty of Rome, signed in March 1957, was mentioned only in passing and, even then, only in a negative way. The EEC and the Six’s atomic energy community (Euratom) were described in that year’s conference report as ‘very important for European unity’, but were both criticised for the fact ‘that they do not cover the whole of Europe and that they do not provide for an adequate co-ordination of the common policies of the European states’.67 The SUCEE reacted to the creation of the EEC in two ways. The initial response was a discussion on European unity, which was published in its newsletter, Labour’s Call.68 The summary of the discussion was developed into the resolution on the reunification of Eastern and Western Europe in Amsterdam in July 1958. According to the resolution, the SUCEE ‘hails the progress achieved towards the integration of the free part of Europe. The great idea of a United States of Europe strongly appeals also to the 64  This would eventually emerge in some form in 1960 as the Christian Democratic International Information and Documentation Centre and, more formally, in 1961 with the formation of the World Union of Christian Democrats. 65  CDUCE, Freedom, 115–8; Kaiser, Christian Democracy, 312; Łukasiewicz, Third Europe, 92. 66  IISH/SUCEE-6, ‘“SUCEE conference, London” Report by Serban Voinea: European unity and the Soviet-dominated countries’, 10–11 July 1955. 67  IISH/SUCEE-8, ‘SUCEE conference, Vienna: Report by Oliver Benjamin: International situation and recent events in Eastern Europe’, 30 June–1 July 1957. 68  ‘Points from the debate on European unity’, Labour’s Call (August 1958), 7–10.

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nations of Eastern Europe.’ The division of the continent and Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the resolution maintained, was a threat to peace, a hindrance to the people in those countries and against the principles of socialist internationalism. And this meant that ‘[a]lthough the forms of East European unification will have to be left to the future, the principle of closest East European unity deserves to be given full support and encouragement at present’. The blend of ‘geographical position, past experience, recent economic transformations, and common problems resulting from the Soviet domination’, according to the SUCEE, all meant that unification of Central and Eastern Europe, with the development of common measures and economic planning, was as vital now as it had been a decade earlier. The resolution also spelt out the path to reaching this goal: ‘This aim can be achieved through an integration of the whole East European area and through regional associations such as the Balkan Federation, the Baltic Federation, the Danubian Federation, or any other association of neighbouring countries.’ The conference added a demand for friendly relations outside any association of nations and support for the UN, whose ‘ultimate goal is the creation of a world government’.69 Secondly, the SUCEE initiated a study group consisting of emigrants and Western experts on ‘the questions of federalisation and organisation of Eastern Europe as well as relations between Eastern Europe and the free part of Europe, which is now in the process of integration’.70 This group evolved into the ‘Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe’, which would hold a series of events and publications over the next decade. And yet by the mid-1970s the SUCEE was dissolved and its member parties joined the SI directly as exile parties. The CLE, IPU and CDUCE all by contrast survived until the end of Cold War, but their activities had in reality faded already by the early 1960s. The last significant intervention came from the IPU in May 1958, when it organised an international forum of the European representatives ‘For Liberty, Land and European Unity’ in Rome. The declaration released at the end of the event reminded readers that ‘Europe can be united in peace and security, resume its historical place and take up its cultural 69  IISH/SUCEE-10, ‘SUCEE conference, Hamburg. The Amsterdam resolution’, 11–12 July 1959; ‘European Unity’, Labour’s Call (August 1958), 3–5. See also, SUCEE, For Freedom and Socialism: Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe 1949–1959 (SUCEE, 1959), 32–3. 70  IISH/SUCEE-9, Minutes of SUCEE Executive meeting, Paris, 9–10 January 1958.

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mission in the Free World only when the now captive Central and Eastern part of it is free again to join in efforts to shape a common European destiny’.71 In stark contrast, the resolution of the IPU congress in 1959 did not demand unification but instead demanded democracy in Eastern Europe and other totalitarian countries and appealed to the West, rather than emigrants, to ‘bring about a final solution for the captive countries’.72 Only in 1963 did the IPU intimate that its members ought to welcome the ‘forging [of] a new link among European nations and [the] bringing [of] the European ship of state to an even keel’, in the hope that it ‘might also in time make things move in the right direction in that other world’.73 From then on, reference to a Central and Eastern European federation of any sort was notable for its absence.

Conclusions: Disunity in Unification The unification of Central and Eastern Europe and national liberation from Soviet control were considered indivisible in the declarations of Eastern European emigrant politicians in the 1950s. They promoted the idea of an all-continent federation consisting of countries from both East and West, and this emerged as a common ground for émigrés regardless of their political background. Their support for a subregional federation was caught up in their fierce anti-communism. So too was the fear that liberation might lead to extreme nationalism considered another threat from the past that might be tempered by a federation of some kind. This does not, however, explain fully their interest in European unity. Rather, each political grouping sincerely desired to see the process of integration take root in Europe and were passionate that their own countries ought to play a central and unwavering role in this development. For all that bound them, however, the discourse of ‘Europe’ and the exact path and form unification promoted by the four party coalitions were different from the beginning. Liberals and Christian democrats from the region could see their ideas being fulfilled in the schemes emerging in Western Europe; the SUCEE and the IPU, by contrast, were each more 71  ‘For Liberty, Land and European Unity’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union (June 1958 June), 13–5. 72  ‘Closing plenary session’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union (June– July 1959), 30–5. 73  Anthony Palacek, ‘The Role of Free Peasantry in a New Europe’, Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union (Nov–Dec 1963), 11–12.

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vocal in criticising the form of the ECSC from the outset. The former thus favoured a subregional approach as an alternative to a ‘capitalist Europe’ of the Six, while the latter moved to emphasise agricultural concerns and the vital interests of Eastern European states in the matter. This would manifest variously in the sense that the Eastern part ought to focus on its own priorities and a broader uneasiness about whether and how a Central and Eastern European bloc could feasibly link with Western states. As these divisions became more obvious, so the prospect that émigrés might agree a common platform from which to establish a Central Eastern European federation faded. The research above, then, shows some of the complexities about European cooperation that this volume seeks to reveal. Integration was clearly not confined to the early European Union. This was in fact a point continually reinforced by all four coalitions. Also revealed is how contested was integration as a concept in this period: Eastern European emigrants knew they hoped to cooperate both with each other and with other (Western) European countries, but the preferred level and methods of doing so were not universal. The research also highlights how context-­ specific integration can be. Eastern European emigrants shared the idealism of Western exiles and seemed sure in the early Cold War period that their idea of a subregional-specific federation could help challenge Soviet rule, rebuild their economies and place them at what many saw as their rightful place: the heart of the continent’s decision-making. The months after Stalin’s death, though, revealed apprehensions about the sincerity of Western countries’ support for Eastern European ideals, while the events of 1956 seemed to show how permanent was the Iron Curtain. The political divisions of the four party coalitions notwithstanding, these types of events arguably helped further to undermine the momentum behind the emigrants’ push to form a federation of their own. It is all the more remarkable therefore that although the practical goal of unification had faded by at least the early 1960s, the ideal of an economically prosperous and politically democratic Europe comprising all its nations was clearly sufficient enough that it stayed with the emigrants until after the end of the Cold War and fed into the later campaigns for their membership of the European Union.

CHAPTER 11

Remain or Leave? Britain and the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) in the Context of Brexit John Krige

Nothing is more indicative of the ‘provincialism’ of the scholarship on European integration than the short shrift that it gives to the place of major scientific and technological projects as platforms holding together the participating states. Even the place of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) is often ignored or glossed over, notwithstanding the exaggerated hopes placed in it by members of the future European Economic Community (EEC) in the mid-1950s and its importance as a vector for American efforts to shape the process of European integration by sharing with them nuclear materials, technology and know-how.1 The European Launcher Development Organisation 1  This dimension is emphasised in the discussion of Euratom in John Krige, Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Europe: US Technological Collaboration and Nonproliferation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).

J. Krige (*) Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_11

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(ELDO) is even further removed from scholarly attention. A space research body intended to develop a satellite launch rocket for six European countries—Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands—its marginal status was arguably amplified by its abysmal collapse in the early 1970s. It is, however, these very features that qualify it as one of what our editors call the ‘diversity of structures littering the European landscape which […] sought to unify and integrate European countries’.2 I, and a few others, have written a good deal on the history of the ELDO already.3 This chapter does not simply rehash that work. Rather, it narrates the ELDO’s biography from when Britain first enthusiastically promoted its establishment in 1960–61, then announced unilaterally that it would leave it in 1966, then changed its mind and decided to remain a member after all. Inevitably, perhaps, this account is written with one eye on the evolution of the Brexit negotiations conducted by the British government between 2016 and 2019 so as to highlight a number of similarities in national behaviour in two processes separated by more than 50 years. Britain has always been a reluctant partner in the post-1945 programme of European reconstruction of course. What we find here, though, is the uncanny persistence of nationalism driven by domestic political contingencies; a certain incomprehension of the geopolitical stakes at play, which led Britain and its continental partners to talk past each other; incompetence inside the civil service leading to scrambled, last-minute course changes; and the tendency for Britain’s partners to persist in their own plans whatever London decided. Britain’s vacillation on ELDO membership was, moreover, indicative of its narrow focus on immediate, short-­ term financial interests at the expense of both a broader vision of European unity and the role of advanced technology in securing its ‘autonomy’ from the superpowers. The government indeed had no coherent long-term space policy. It simply muddled through in an ad hoc manner, reacting to situations as they arose rather trying to shape the future in order to protect its interests. As such, I hope this account contributes to the aim of this  See Introduction.  See for instance Krige, Sharing Knowledge; John Krige, Fifty Years of European Cooperation in Space (Paris: Beauchesne, 2014); John Krige and Arturo Russo, A History of the European Space Agency, 1958–1987, Vol. I: The Story of ESRO and ELDO (Noordwijk: ESA, 2000); Kevin Madders, A New Force at a New Frontier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 2 3

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book to reach out beyond the usual audience for this kind of study, as well as to scholarly work on the nature of the British state historically and today—notably in its dealings with continental Europe.

A Brief Account of the Origins of the ELDO The British government led by Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was the main driving force which led to the establishment of the ELDO in the early 1960s. It was one of several possible answers to the question of how to salvage the resources invested in Britain’s intermediate-­ range ballistic missile called ‘Blue Streak’ that the Macmillan government had cancelled as a weapon in April 1960. Blue Streak was a key component of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent, the delivery system that would replace the V-bomber force designed to strike targets in the Soviet Union with British nuclear warheads. Soaring costs, delays in development, inter-­ service rivalry and the possibility of replacing it with similar (cheaper) missiles bought from the US (specifically, the Thor) were among the many reasons that led to waning support for the missile as the 1950s wore on.4 The single most important reason for its elimination from Britain’s deterrent, however, was the strategic argument against it. After all, Blue Streak was a liquid-fuelled first strike weapon. And as Stephen Twigge explains, this meant that at times of crisis ‘a choice would have to be made to either show caution, and risk being disarmed, or react immediately and risk starting a nuclear war’.5 To reduce the risk of being disarmed it was clearly preferable to situate the missiles in protected underground silos. It was estimated at the time that each such silo would need to be covered with a 750-ton movable cover, enough concrete for 10–20 miles of two-lane carriageway.6 That caused the British Chiefs of Staff to preference the newly developed mobile delivery platforms on offer from the Americans— Skybolt missiles launched from aircraft or the Polaris nuclear submarine system—over a vulnerable, land-based first-strike weapon. 4  Ian Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship: Britain’s Deterrent and America, 1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), chapter 5. 5  Stephen R. Twigge, The Early Development of Guided Weapons in the United Kingdom, 1940–1960 (London: Routledge, 1993), 347. 6  Roy Dommett. ‘Silos for Blue Streak’, unpublished essay (1998). Dommett mentions that 60 such silos would have required all the concrete used to build the British motorway system as it existed in 1998. His paper was written for a British Rocketry Oral History Programme directed by Dave Wright.

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Ian Clark judges the decision to cancel Blue Streak as a missile to be ‘one of a small handful of momentous defence decisions taken by Britain in the post-war period’.7 Macmillan himself remarked many years later in his memoirs that he was ‘not now convinced that it was wise’.8 Writing to the British Cabinet in July 1960, the prime minister remarked that their decision to cancel ‘had had a profound impact on public opinion. There is a growing recognition that the United Kingdom is a relatively small power which cannot hope to compete with the efforts of the giant powers in all fields. If we cancel Blue Streak altogether’, the prime minister went on, ‘will the decision be generally regarded as a further step in the direction of prudence and realism, or will it be held to mean that we are becoming increasingly, and to an undesirable extent, dependent on the United States?’9 This ‘intangible consideration of prestige’ had to be factored into the Cabinet’s debate on whether or not to spend £50 million more on the development of a British space launcher, alone or with others, but derived from Blue Streak stripped of its military characteristics.10 One thing was clear: Australia would have to be part of the conversation as it had invested considerable resources in developing a launching range for British missiles in the desert at Woomera. Of the various alternatives considered, the most promising option to outright cancellation was to pool resources with other countries to build together a multistage satellite launcher. A quick survey of the member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the Commonwealth and the EEC revealed some interest in Paris and Bonn—but not much else. The French had considerable experience in building missiles for their force de frappe and saw some technological interest in the venture. All the same, it took the personal intervention of President Charles de Gaulle to agree to build the second stage of the launcher (Blue Streak being the first). Germany agreed to build the third stage. As the German Minister of Scientific Research, Gerhard Stoltenberg, later explained, Britain and  Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy, 184.  Harold Macmillan, Pointing the Way, 1959–1961 (New York: Harper Collins, 1972), 252. 9  British National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA), CAB 129/102/30, C(60)130, ‘Blue Streak’, 20 July 1960. 10  For the full range of options see TNA/CAB/129/102/29, C(60)129, ‘Blue Streak: Space Research – Note by the Deputy Secretary of the Cabinet’, 19 July 1960. Ballistic missiles do not have enough kinetic energy to escape the downward pull of the earth’s gravitational field. Typically space launchers overcome the problem by stacking rockets (‘stages’) atop of each other. 7 8

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France had each operated national research and development programmes in rocketry for many years. For the Federal Republic of Germany, a collaborative venture with key Western European powers ‘provided the opportunity of entering the space field again and of reaching in time a world level with their partners’.11 Multinational and civilian, the joint project would enable it to overcome the historic burden of Wernher Von Braun’s development of the V-2 missile for the Nazi regime and to re-­ enter the field of rocketry.12 Italy was the most reluctant of all the senior partners. Their engineers pointed out that since the major players were determined to protect their national industrial bases, each stage of ‘Europa’—as the rocket was called—was being built in a separate country, with little sharing of technology or know-how across national borders. This was a recipe for disaster. American experience had shown that large technological projects could only succeed if they had a centralised, overarching management structure to ensure that everything worked as part of an integrated system. The dismal history of Europa proved them right: after a decade of trials and tribulations it never succeeded in putting a single satellite into orbit, thus exposing the ELDO’s (and Western Europe’s) lack of experience in systems management. This combination of technonationalism and cost concerns meant that the British government had immense trouble enrolling partners in what would be called the ELDO. The rule of thumb in other scientific organisations for astronomy, physics and space science in Western Europe at the time was that each partner’s percentage share of the budget was correlated to its gross national product, but could not exceed 25 per cent of the whole. Desperate to engage its partners—who were fully aware of its weak bargaining position—the British government considered paying as much as half of the ELDO’s budget in December 1960. In the event, when the ELDO officially came into being in February 1964, the UK had agreed to pay 38.78 per cent of the budget. Its other member states included all six members of the EEC bar Luxembourg, along with Australia, which provided launching facilities in lieu of a budgetary contribution. The Initial Programme of the organisation was costed at £70 million. It envisaged building a three-stage launcher and a test satellite built by Italy,  TNA/CAB/164/7, Notes on Meetings of Jenkins with Stoltenberg, 5 January 1966.  Michael Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (New York: Knopf, 2007). 11 12

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along with the associated telemetry and tracking facilities, the responsibilities of Belgium and the Netherlands. The ELDO’s founding convention had also made provision for a concurrent study of future requirements, to be reviewed after two years in the event that technological developments called for a reorientation of the ELDO’s mission. There are two related points to remember from this somewhat anodyne account of the birth of the ELDO. First, and most obvious, it was the UK which played a key role in actively promoting its establishment. Initially this was driven by Macmillan’s attempt to salvage some British pride and prestige from the cancellation of the Blue Streak missile. Once France and Germany had agreed to participate—up to a certain financial level—the government had little option but to strike the best deal it could get, no matter what it cost. Ironically, it was the bonds that were already holding the members of the EEC together that gave the project the traction it needed, notwithstanding the inclusion of a major Commonwealth country among the member states. Correlatively the immense pressure the Minister of Aviation, Peter Thorneycroft, put on some of his homologues in Western European capitals to join the ELDO would come back to haunt the British when, just two years after the Convention had been ratified, they proposed withdrawing from the ELDO. It should also be emphasised that the political interest of collaborating with others to recycle Blue Streak was of very secondary importance in Britain. It was cost-sharing that mattered. Little if any explicit reference was made to a collaborative space venture as an attempt to draw closer to the fledgling EEC, even though Macmillan made his application to join the Community in July 1961. The same holds for Britain’s partners in the venture. Historians still do not quite understand why de Gaulle personally agreed to support Macmillan’s project when the two met together at Rambouillet in January 1961, even though his engineers were uninterested in the civilian version of the rocket—it was the military features of the missile they were after, features that the British denied them. As we saw, the West German government had a clear domestic motive for joining the ELDO derived from specific features of its wartime past: ‘European’ sentiments were perhaps assumed, but they were secondary. In short, the ELDO is something of an oddity in terms of those organisations littering the continent’s landscape in that pro-cooperation sentiments played little or no role in its foundation, though they did become more robust once the organisation had taken root and its health was threatened by its key founder member.

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The Turning Point: December 1965 to July 1966 The Labour Party led by Harold Wilson won the British general election in October 1964. The new government had promised to cut ‘prestige’ technological projects and to buy weapons systems from the US. This reorientation in policy was amplified by the parlous state of the economy and the weakness of the British pound. A Committee of Officials was appointed to review all aspects of British space policy. Its report emphasised that all government departments deemed the ELDO to be of low economic priority and just the kind of project that Labour had promised to cut. Estimates of the cost of its Initial Programme had already doubled from about £70 million to some £150 million. In addition, the US’ Early Bird satellite, launched in April 1965, had demonstrated the possibility of communications by satellite. The French were emphatic that Western Europe had to be able to compete in what promised to be a lucrative market, and that the ELDO launcher had to be upgraded with a so-called perigee/apogee system—a kick-motor that could lift heavy telecommunication satellites to the geostationary orbit (a circular orbit approximately 36,000 km above the equator in which a satellite appears to be stationary and always at the same point in the sky as seen from the ground). This would lead to even more money being spent on a launcher that was increasingly of no interest to the British. Blue Streak was working perfectly so that London’s contributions to the ELDO budget were now being used primarily to develop rocket technology in Germany and in France for a launcher that could never compete commercially with what the Americans had to offer. Though Wilson was eager to establish closer technological links with the continent, he was sceptical of ventures like the ELDO that, in his view, were sustained by purely political considerations. As Jack Diamond, the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, put it, ‘the Government’s European policies should not be prayed in aid of cooperative projects whose sole justification was that they were cooperative’.13 Surely it would not be difficult to persuade other members of the organisation that the ELDO was now such a ‘wanton waste of resources, both from our point of view, and from that of Europe as a whole’ that her partners in the organisation might actually welcome the suggestion to close it down, happy to let Britain take the 13  TNA/PREM/13/117, P. Rogers, Memo to the Prime Minister, ‘ELDO’ (MISC. 31/2nd Meeting), 26 March 1965.

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blame for its collapse.14 On 15 December 1965, the British Cabinet decided—against the advice of the new Minister of Aviation, Fred Mulley, and the Foreign Office—to leave the ELDO as soon as was practicable. A few days later Mulley presented his government’s views at a meeting of the ELDO Council—the policymaking body that often met at ministerial level. It was a sobering experience. Mulley reported home that, far from welcoming Britain’s doubts about the viability of the ELDO, there was an ‘immediate and violent reaction from all national delegates’ at the ELDO Council meeting. As a report by Whitehall officials put it, Mulley’s experience dispelled the ‘illusion that the Western European Governments at heart share our view of ELDO and are only waiting for the British lead to break it up’.15 To appease them, Mulley approved the ELDO budget for 1966. The Council agreed to meet again in April that year. The Labour government was not moved by the blowback in December. In February 1966 the British government submitted another aide-­ mémoire to its ELDO partners suggesting that the organisation had not lived up to its initial promise and that Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) now ‘seriously doubted whether the very large resources involved in the project were justified by the likely result’. Their thinking was guided by the sentiment that they were investing scarce resources in a rocket that was of little technological or commercial interest, given the large technological gap with the US. As another aide-mémoire put it, the ‘ELDO will produce in 1969 a vehicle which will be obsolescent and uncompetitive in cost and performance with launchers produced by the United States’ and could not hope to penetrate the market for launching telecommunications satellites.16 In light of this, the British Cabinet focused on the increasing costs and declining economic prospects for the specific launcher being developed by the ELDO.  Their partners, however, saw matters entirely differently. German Minister Stoltenberg went straight to the point: the development of a West European launcher ‘cannot for the foreseeable future be solely

14  TNA/EW/25/52, Draft Memo Addressed to the Foreign Secretary, ‘ELDO’, 27 May 1965. 15  TNA/FO/378/189508, Report by Officials, ‘ELDO, Space Policy and Europe’, 11 January 1966, for all quotes in this paragraph. 16  Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence (hereafter HAEU), European Launcher Development Organisation (hereafter ELDO) archive, ELDO/CM(Apr 66)/5 Annex I, ‘The United Kingdom Aide-Memoire’, 16 February 1966.

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governed by economic considerations’, as the British seemed to think.17 A complete change in attitude was called for, and the British were subjected to one delegate after another stressing how narrow and parochial was their conception of investments in high technology. Instead, while Britain looked for short-term financial benefits, the ELDO had to be situated in the context of long-term industrial policy. ‘The primary aim for the development of launchers in Europe’, Stoltenberg insisted, ‘has been to secure the material preconditions for executing European space projects, scientific in character and with a bias towards subsequent commercial applications, and concomitantly to promote advanced aerospace technologies, with all the manifold stimuli these can provide for other areas of science and engineering’. Space achievements by the US and the Soviet Union ‘should not hold us back from acquiring our own know-how and expertise and so developing our own possibilities in Europe in this particular area, so vital to any kind of space mission’.18 The Dutch delegate to the ELDO confirmed that when his country embarked on the project, ‘the opportunity it would afford Western European manufacturing industries to acquire the necessary knowledge and experience in this field of advanced technology [was] far more important than the prospect of commercial gain’.19 Rather than being a cause for withdrawing from having one’s own access to space, American and Soviet successes only confirmed the imperative to invest in it. As the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), liked to say, ‘knowledge, more than guns or butter, is the true power of modern states, and the technological balance of power is increasingly the major concern of the leaders of both weak and strong nations’.20 The Belgian delegation also stressed that the ELDO had a key role to play in closing the technological gap with the US. Pierre Harmel, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, reported on the intergovernmental deliberations at a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) held in January 1966. OECD ministers had emphasised the importance of nuclear and space projects as ‘obviously 17  HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr 66)5, Annex III, ‘Aide-Memoire by the Government of the Federal Government of Germany’, 16 February 1966. 18  Ibid. 19  HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr 66)5, Annex VI, ‘Aide-Memoire by the Government of The Netherlands’, 16 February 1966. 20  HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr 66)5, Annex II, ‘Aide-Memoire from the ELDO Secretariat on the Memorandum Presented by the United Kingdom’, 26 April 1966.

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tailor-made for [West European] cooperation, not only because achievements in these areas call for particularly extensive and costly equipment, but also because by their very nature and complexity they supply the greatest incentives for the development of advanced techniques’. These in turn would serve as platforms for collaboration with the US. Western Europe could only collaborate fruitfully when it had something to bring to the table: as Harmel put it, ‘if we are to receive, we must give something in return. How can we prove to the Americans that we should be worthwhile partners if by ourselves we have never achieved anything of significance.’21 Echoing his colleague, the Belgian delegate to the ELDO emphasised that cooperation with the US would be economically as well as politically advantageous only ‘when there is a two-way traffic in know-how’.22 Reciprocity in knowledge sharing was a sine qua non for sound cooperative ventures. West Europeans had to make major investments in space now so that, eventually, they could both compete and collaborate with the US on a more equal footing. The need for an autonomous launch capacity to secure access to the telecommunications satellite (the so-called comsat) market was also very much on ministers’ minds. Mulley doubted that Europe could produce launchers that could compete with what the US had to offer. The best option that he could imagine was for Western Europe to contribute hardware to the global comsat system then being planned by the US ‘by developing satellites to be launched by an American launcher or perhaps through our firms participating in consortia with American and other international firms’.23 The Dutch delegate would hear none of this: ‘If Europe had no launcher of her own she would be dependent for ever on the goodwill of non-European countries’.24 Stoltenberg, for his part, insisted that this situation could seriously harm Western Europe, ‘for instance in the case of the establishment of commercially exploited satellite systems [if] the economic interests of the supply country and Europe cut across one another or failed to coincide’.25 And Harmel summed up the 21  HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr.66)PV/2, Annex I, ‘Address by Mr. Pierre Harmel, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the Ministerial Conference on Space’, 27 April 1977. 22  HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr 66)5, Annex IV, ‘Aide-Memoire by the Belgian Government’, 26 April 1966. 23   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr.66)PV/1, ‘Minutes of the First Meeting’, 26 April 1966. 24  Ibid. 25  HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr 66)5, Annex III, ‘Aide-Memoire of the Government of Federal Republic of Germany’, 26 April 1966.

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Belgian viewpoint: ‘We do not have to assert our prestige by setting foot on the moon. But it is essential that European culture and philosophy be present when space [television] makes the whole world a single forum for exchanging ideas.’ If we abandon rocket development, he maintained, ‘the Western market for satellite communications would fall to the United States without any competition’.26 No one should overlook the serious economic and political consequences of abandoning rocket development, Harmel insisted. Britain’s partners also feared that if it left the ELDO, it could trigger a ‘domino-effect’ that would inevitably have implications for the success of the EEC. Stoltenberg for one said that to dissolve the ELDO now would, ‘especially in the United States, result in a considerable loss of confidence in Europe’s technological potential, besides impairing Europe’s political image in general’.27 The French spoke for many when they commented that if the joint launcher project failed, ‘we shall have demonstrated that [the] ELDO was merely a contemporary illustration of the Tower of Babel and we shall have set a most dangerous precedent for future European cooperation’.28 Mulley was unyielding in the face of this united assault on his position. Having heard all of this, he did no more than repeat the economic argument that was the backbone of Britain’s determination to withdraw: ‘taking our initial contribution of £65 million on Blue Streak before ELDO began and which would otherwise have had to be provided collectively, and the £31 million contributed since, our total is £96 million, much more than the total contributions of our European partners put together’. This was not to say that Britain was against cooperation. On the contrary, Mulley insisted, ‘we think it would be no service to our partners or to the cause of European unity if we did not apply to collective ventures the same careful scrutiny that we apply to our national undertakings’.29 The implication was that Britain’s partners spent money indiscriminately on collaborative ventures just because they were collaborative. The British government, frugal, was only willing to spend money on intrinsically  HAEU/ELDO, ‘Address by Mr. Pierre Harmel’, 27 April 1977.  HAEU/ELDO, ‘Aide-Memoire of the Government of Federal Republic of Germany’, 26 April 1966. 28   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr.66)PV/2, ELDO Ministerial Conference, April 1966, ‘Minutes of the Second Meeting on 27th April 1966’, 27 April 1966, 8. 29   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr.66)PV/4, ELDO Ministerial Conference, April 1966, ‘Minutes of the Fourth Meeting on 28th April 1966’, 28 April 1966, 1, 2. 26 27

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worthwhile scientific and technological projects. In Britain’s eyes, its partners were chasing the chimaera of technological independence from the US. In their eyes, it was behaving like a nation of shopkeepers, blinded to the broader issues at stake by its obsession with bookkeeping. It was left to the Dutch, traditionally known for their close alliance with the British, to criticise Mulley directly for exaggerating the disadvantages that the ELDO had for the UK. Frustrated by British stubbornness, the Dutch delegate said that ‘he could hardly believe that the United Kingdom really thought that the ELDO work was of no significance to its own technical, economic and scientific progress’.30 The Dutch delegation continued to stress the benefits that the British had extracted from the ELDO at a subsequent meeting of the Organisation’s Council when its spokesman chose deliberately not to ‘mince words’ and even felt obliged to apologise for his ‘frankness’. The ELDO was in danger of being ‘torpedoed’ by the very same government that had originally ‘done her very best to convince the more reluctant countries such as his’ to join the organisation, he said. What is more, contrary to the impression given by Mulley, ‘the United Kingdom has had full benefits from the Initial Programme. They had been able to try out completely their Blue Streak. They had received more work than their own contributions. Their partners were in a very different position. Many of them had received work which was less than their contributions.’31 By 1966, then, the British had seemingly got what they wanted out of the ELDO: now they were having second thoughts and wanted to withdraw, leaving their partners to either pick up the bill or to follow in their path, undermining the whole future of technical collaboration in Western Europe.

The US Steps in, the British Cabinet Confirms Its Decision to Leave: And Then Changes Its Mind at the Last Minute After the April Council meeting, officials in Washington were deeply concerned that the ELDO might collapse and began to consider ways in which they might encourage Britain to stay by providing technical 30   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(Apr.66)PV/3, ELDO Ministerial Conference, April 1966, ‘Minutes of the Third Meeting on 27 April 1966’, 27 April 1966, 7. 31   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(June66)PV/1, ELDO Ministerial Conference, June 1966, ‘Minutes of the First Meeting, 9th June, 1966’, 9 June 1966, 4.

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support. They had two main reasons for doing so. As George Ball, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Undersecretary of State, explained, ‘the United States has a direct interest in the continuation of European integration. It is the most realistic means of achieving European political unity with all that that implies for our relations with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union […] and is the precondition for a Europe able to carry its proper share of responsibility for our common defense.’32 To this end, the ELDO was thought of positively as a way to divert money, expertise and industrial capacity away from national military missile programmes into a collaborative, Western European civilian satellite launcher programme. As a report prepared for the State Department put it: In the US view, the ELDO multilateral framework for launcher development has the advantages of keeping rocket programs more in the open, directed toward peaceful uses, subject to international controls, and capable of absorbing resources which might otherwise be used for purely national programs. National rocket launcher programs, on the other hand, tend to be secretive and emphasise aspects of military significance. Accordingly, the prospect that ELDO might collapse presented the possibility of greater emphasis in Western Europe on national programs tending in a less desirable direction.33

As Washington saw it, then, since no Western European country had the resources to develop both a missile and a space launcher, the former could be expected to emerge at the expense of the latter. By helping the ELDO technically, by contrast, the US could contribute to Western European integration and simultaneously secure its non-proliferation objectives. The American authorities did not leave matters at that. Sir Solly Zuckerman, Britain’s Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, was summoned to Washington to be told of the Johnson administration’s grave concerns about the British position. US officials emphasised the two arguments made above, adding that it was also important for Western Europe to close the transatlantic technology gap: they would otherwise 32  Lyndon Baines Johnson Library (hereafter LBJL), National Security File, Box 192, Germany: Country File, Europe and USSR folder Germany, Erhard Visit [12/65] 12/19–21/6, Department of State to the American Embassy in Bonn, 18 November 1965. 33  US Department of State, Report No. REU/RM-37, W.G.  Allen and A.W.  DePorte, ‘The ELDO Conferences: European Cooperation on Space Launcher Development May Be at a Turning Point’, 1 June 1966 (kindly provided by William Burr).

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never overcome their technological backwardness and thus contribute to Western defence, if they did nothing to help themselves. Sir Solly also learned that the US was unlikely to give their British partners sole control of any military satellite that they launched on behalf of the UK. He now also suspected that they would never give away their monopoly in the commercial communications satellite field by putting competitive British comsats into space with American launchers. As the case for building an independent launcher became increasingly persuasive, Sir Solly, who had been strongly opposed to the ELDO, was ‘beginning to wobble’ on the decision to leave.34 Back in London, the Cabinet revisited the issue of ELDO membership at the end of May 1966 in anticipation of the next meeting of the ELDO Council. They ignored the offers of support from Washington: there was no advantage to be gained by ‘acquiescing in the wishes of other governments at our own expense’.35 This overrode the fury of two senior officials and a Foreign Office minister who accused the Cabinet of adopting a policy that not only implied that ‘our partners are united in error and perversity’ but also risked ‘almost gratuitously damaging our political relations with [Western] Europe at a time when our great concern should be to nurture them’.36 The Cabinet’s decision to leave was leaked to the press, precipitating further objections from both Washington and the British aerospace industry. Such protests were to no avail. On 3 June 1966, the British government sent another aide-mémoire to its partner states in the ELDO.37 It informed them that HMG had regretfully decided that they would leave the ELDO.  Britain, the note stated, could not continue to support the Initial Programme ‘beyond the extent to which we are already committed’. Nor could they participate in the development of the so-called perigee/apogee system that enabled the rocket to put comsats in a geostationary orbit. Mulley was to formally confirm the British decision to leave when he met with his continental partners a week later. To prepare his position, the legal experts were called in to calculate the penalty, if any, which Britain would have to pay by withdrawing from the ELDO at this stage. Previous discussions on this matter had been limited  TNA/FO/371/189512, T.W. Garvey. ‘ELDO and Military Satellites’, 20 April 1965.  TNA/CAB/128/41, ‘Cabinet Conclusions’, 26 May 1966. 36  TNA/FO/371/181595, C. O’Neill memo, 31 May 1966; H. Gore Booth memo, 1 June 1966; Lord Chalfont memo, 1 June 1966. 37   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(June66)12, Annex, ‘British Embassy, Paris AideMemoire’, 3 June 1966. 34 35

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to analysing the terms and obligations spelt out in the ELDO Convention and the associated Financial Protocol. The Legal Experts of the Crown, as they were known, pushed their analysis upstream to the travaux préparatoires (preparatory discussions) that the member states had held in 1961. They found out that the British government had imposed tight financial constraints on its partners to ensure that they would not renege on their commitment to the organisation and leave prematurely. As a result, there was a serious risk that if Britain were to leave the ELDO now, and the issue were to go to arbitration, the government would lose. The cost of doing so was estimated to be in the range of £30–£50 million, the final amount depending on the exact penalties imposed on the UK if other member states decided they could not continue the Initial Programme without Britain’s financial help. By contrast, the cost of remaining, and assuming that the UK’s contribution to the ELDO’s budget was reduced to 25 per cent, was about £42 million.38 In short, in addition to having serious political ramifications, leaving might actually cost more than remaining. Mulley needed new instructions before he went to Paris for the next meeting of the ELDO ministers, scheduled for 9.30 am on 9 June 1966. The Cabinet was reconvened in haste at 10:00 am that same morning, after securing a postponement of the ministerial meeting with the other member states. It had until 11.30 am to define British policy on ELDO, at which time Mulley had to leave for Paris to announce their decision. The new financial considerations, amplified by the always-unpleasant political ramifications, left little room for doubt: the UK would remain in ELDO but would not enlighten its partners as to the reasons for its change of heart. As one can imagine, it was consequently a rather sheepish Mulley who thanked his ministerial partners for agreeing to a last-minute deferment of the start of their conference from 9.30 am to 2 pm. It was also Mulley who had to mobilise all his diplomatic skills to defend the determination to leave as expressed in the aide-mémoire circulated less than a week before while expressing a new willingness to remain for reasons not to be disclosed. As it happened, he weathered the critics of the aide-­ mémoire by urging them to ‘set aside the possible pessimistic interpretation’ of its contents.39 In a restricted ministerial session of the ELDO the  For details, Krige, Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Europe, 111–2.   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(June66)PV/1, ELDO Ministerial Conference, June 1966, ‘Minutes of the First Meeting of the Resumed Ministerial Conference on the Afternoon of the 9th June, 1966’, 9 June 1966, 5. 38 39

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next day, it was subsequently agreed by those present to complete the Initial Programme and to develop the apogee/perigee system using a new scale of contributions. The technological core of the programme was to be enhanced while Britain’s share of the costs was to be slashed from almost 39 to 27 per cent—the same as that of West Germany. The shortfall would be made up by her ELDO partners.40 Seven weeks later, Walt Rostow, Johnson’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, signed National Security Action Memorandum 354. This authorised US technical collaboration with the ELDO.41 In proposing this course of action, the State Department suggested that the British Cabinet’s decision to remain was ‘no doubt influenced by the severe European reactions to the possibility of British withdrawal and to the expressions of US interest in the continuation of ELDO’.42 Little did they realise that the British remained in the ELDO primarily to avoid the steep penalty that leaving might entail: foreign policy considerations, be they opprobrium from the continent or pressure to remain from Washington, were far from the minds of the majority of Cabinet members when they reversed their policy in an emergency, hour-long meeting early that morning in June 1966.

Conclusion: Britain’s Leaving the ELDO and Its Leaving the EU To end this analysis, I want to suggest some parallels in the behaviour of the British Cabinet as it oscillated between leaving and remaining in the ELDO and some aspects of the behaviour of the British government over leaving—or ‘Brexiting’—the European Union. Of course, the implications of the two decisions are vastly different, one restricted to an important technological sector, the other to the British economy as a whole. This difference in scale obviously demands that we proceed with caution. However, it should not prevent us identifying some startling similarities 40   HAEU/ELDO, ELDO/CM(June66)PV/3, ELDO Ministerial Conference, June 1966. ‘Summary Record of the Restricted Meeting of ELDO Ministers on 10 June, 1966’, 16 June 1966. 41  White House, National Security Action Memorandum no. 354, ‘U.S. Cooperation with the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO)’, 29 July 1966, available at https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsam-lbj/nsam-354.htm (accessed 29 April 2019). 42  LBJL/NSF/Charles Johnson File, Box 14, ‘Cooperation in Space. Working Group on Expanded International Cooperation in Space’, undated.

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that gesture towards the persistence of deep structures in the operation of the British state—structures that come to the surface at moments of crisis and have marked effects on their resolution. The British government’s suggestion to West European governments that they develop together a space launch vehicle was driven by domestic concerns, not by any conviction that European integration was desirable. Strategically, the Joint Chiefs of Staff saw no need to invest in Blue Streak when mobile launch platforms (the V-bombers for Skybolt and the Polaris system for the Navy) were available. Politically, if accepted, the proposal would help the Conservative Party save face when challenged by Labour to defend its original investment in the missile. It would also satisfy the Australians and help defuse fears that Britain’s ties with the Commonwealth might be dissolved in favour of closer links with Western Europe. Once the decision to cancel Blue Streak was taken, economic considerations dominated Britain’s approach to the ELDO. It was financial concerns that drove the government to propose collaboration to its partners; or, more precisely, there was the need to share costs in developing a space launcher derived from a cancelled missile which, it was hoped, would also help save British prestige. It was likewise economic concerns that led the Labour government to propose leaving the ELDO in 1966: costs were, after all, rising and the (perceived) direct benefits to Britain were declining. It was again economic concerns that caused it to change tack and to stay in the organisation, with the realisation that it would cost about as much to leave as to remain. And it was an economic concession that ultimately sealed Britain’s ongoing membership of the organisation, with the reduction in its percentage contribution to the ELDO’s budget. It is not simply that British policy was driven by the Treasury. Rather, it is that the British gave little or no weight to the political advantages of building a strong, cooperative Western European institution in a cutting-­ edge domain of high technology. The concept of European unity and the capacity to compete on an equal footing with the US were seemingly irrelevant. In London’s eyes, continental Europeans cooperated for cooperation’s sake: they sought to challenge the monopoly of the US on access to space simply because, led by the nose by de Gaulle, they distrusted them. Correlatively, the strategic argument advanced by continental governments for the need to build a launcher—that it was imperative to build the technological infrastructure which would allow for independent access to space and would ensure that the US did not control the commercial telecom satellite market—carried little weight in London. The British

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government trusted the US to launch West European satellites to compete for a market share against US companies, though Zuckerman did begin to ‘wobble’ at the last minute. They were sure they could strike bilateral deals with Washington as the need arose. Its partners on the continent were acutely aware of the massive asymmetry in technological and financial power between the two sides of the Atlantic and, in the spirit of realpolitik, did not doubt that the US would lever it to their advantage—as, it would turn out, they subsequently did. The Macmillan government preferred to cling to the idea that the UK-US ‘special relationship’ would protect British interests in space from the raw exercise of American power. It is noteworthy that members of the ELDO, though enraged by Britain’s proposal to withdraw from the organisation, and fearful that might it well collapse as a result, went out of their way to find a solution to maintain British membership. The Conservative Minister of Aviation, Peter Thorneycroft, had in 1960–61 cudgelled some of them into joining the organisation against their better judgment during his somewhat desperate tour of European capitals. Yet once the project had gained momentum, they realised that Britain’s financial, technological and industrial contributions were important assets. And they quickly understood that financial concessions were all that was needed to maintain political momentum, absorbing a substantial increase in their shares of the budget to keep the British on board. Britain’s partners in the ELDO, like her partners in the European Union (EU) today, did not want her to leave. There are other uncanny parallels between the UK government’s Brexit negotiation with the EU and the Cabinet debates over withdrawal from the ELDO over 50  years earlier. Administrative incompetence was rife. Important policy decisions were taken at the last minute. Mulley had to delay a scheduled meeting of West European ministers to enable him to get new instructions that same morning, just in time for a dash over to Paris by plane for a rescheduled meeting due to begin early that afternoon. In its initial discussions and proposal to withdraw, the government had only superficially considered the financial penalty for leaving the ELDO prematurely—penalties that they themselves had set on the high side in the original negotiations precisely to discourage such behaviour and to allow for medium-term planning based on guaranteed financial commitments. When the legal experts of the Crown came up with a carefully researched figure, it turned the complacent world of the Cabinet upside down. Similarly, the debate over leaving the EU became so bogged down

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in the British Parliament that, at the last minute, Prime Minister Theresa May had to negotiate an extension to the leave date that she had defined. What of American pressure to remain? Washington’s position on the ELDO was consistent with a decade or more of support by successive administrations in favour of Western Europeans forming a stronger, united bloc to face the communist threat in their own backyard. This seemed to make little or no difference to British thinking. The offer of US technological assistance to the ELDO was mentioned at Cabinet meetings, but apparently only in passing. Those present were probably unable to assess the technical significance of the various kinds of support that Washington offered. More significantly, American fears of a ‘domino effect’—that if Britain left the ELDO it would undermine the fragile, broader process of cooperation among Western European states—also seem to have fallen on deaf ears. It was Whitehall, not Washington, that swung the argument from ‘leave’ back to ‘remain’. In this same vein, in April 2016 Barack Obama put pressure on the British people not to vote ‘leave’ when he visited the country shortly before the Brexit referendum. The American President took the opportunity to mention the many kinds of US-UK ties that constituted their special relationship, before warning the British government that it would go to ‘the back of the queue’ in bilateral trade negotiations with the US if it left the EU.43 While such concerns over the loss of British sovereignty were uppermost in the minds of ‘Brexiters’, they played no evident role in the ‘leave ELDO’ campaign. This is not surprising. For one thing, Britain’s promotion of the ELDO came hard on the heels of the Suez debacle of 1956, which cruelly exposed the limitations of British power and the country’s inability to act against the wishes of a US administration. Cancelling Blue Streak at a moment when both superpowers were embarking on major space programmes further confirmed the relative decline of Britain as a world power, as Macmillan himself recognised. In fact, Macmillan was essentially resigned to the dilution of sovereignty involved in joining the ELDO, placing it in the context of the ‘winds of change’ that were transforming a global world order in which imperial Britain had reigned supreme. Brexit has brought home what globalisation means in practice. It has brought to the surface the deep, structural economic interdependence of nation states today and exposed the limits of their sovereignty for all to  Writing in the Sun, as reported in The Independent, 22 April 2016.

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see. One of the cruellest myths put about by the Brexiters is that Britain will have more control over her economic affairs in this globalised, interconnected world, and that ‘no deal’ with the EU actually means ‘many bilateral deals’ with the rest of the world in which Britain will be free to negotiate far better terms of trade than it could when shackled by ‘the bureaucrats in Brussels’. If we can take anything from the ELDO episode, it is that Macmillan’s desperate need to broker a deal with other West Europeans in 1960–61, and the punitive concessions that he was obliged to make therein, is a clear warning of what may lie ahead now Britain has opted to strike off on its own. It is a superb irony that India, to take one example, has insisted that any bilateral trade deal with the UK includes easing restrictions on visas and immigration for skilled Indian workers who want to come to the country.44 The ELDO’s history may have other lessons for today too. It collapsed in 1973, above all because the technological platform that was supposed to glue its member states together was not solid enough to resist the centrifugal pull of national interests. No national government was willing to hand over control to a central, organising authority and give it political leeway and management responsibility to build the rocket. France, supported by West Germany, decided to act. Together they took the lead, politically, financially and industrially, to build Western Europe’s new launcher—named Ariane—in the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA). By the late 1980s, Arianespace had captured over 50 per cent of the world market for launching civilian satellites into space. This willingness to take responsibility for a risky collaborative venture was only possible, it must be said, thanks to a major institutional reform that had been under discussion for several years but which only gained traction in 1973 on the insistence of the British. At the heart of that reform was the so-called à la carte system: the idea that states could pick and choose what parts of the space programme they paid for, as well as the level of funds that they were willing to contribute to them (based on what they thought they could afford nationally for civil space activities). It is admittedly true that members of the ELDO were expected to participate in all its programmes—like upgrades in rocket power, acquisition of a new launching base in French Guyana—proportional to their gross  national wealth. And it is likewise true that this new arrangement was also underpinned by a ‘federalist’ political agenda that—to quote one leading Belgian  Business Insider India, 20 March 2019.

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minister—would see a ‘genuinely common’ continental programme which involved ESA member states making ‘all-round concessions to the opinions and aspirations of others’ rather than assessing whether or not participation was worthwhile ‘by the sole yardstick of […] national interest’.45 But the à la carte approach brought progress where it might otherwise have led to failure. Take Michael Heseltine, who as the British Minister for Aerospace and Shipping between March 1972 and February 1974 seemingly could not stomach the federalist kind of reasoning. Indeed, he ‘categorically declined to participate’ in the new launcher programme, but was more than happy for Britain to take the lead in developing a maritime satellite (called Marots) along with those who chose to join the UK. Heseltine’s à la carte approach worked both because it resonated with the increasingly pragmatic sentiments of other West European governments and because no one wanted to turn their backs on a major power that had just joined the EEC. In the subsequent negotiations over cost-­ sharing in a new package deal that involved Ariane, Marots and a laboratory for doing scientific experiments in space (Spacelab), Heseltine brokered a new deal with France and West Germany. The UK promised to make a useful technological contribution to the launcher programme and contribute a little over 6 per cent to West Germany’s pet project, Spacelab. In return, the two major continental powers would pay 35 per cent of the costs of developing Marots. As Heseltine tells the story, when tasked by his civil servants to break the back of the space programme if he could, he suggested that he use what money he had to bring Britain into both Spacelab and the launcher ‘and we try to scoop the pool for satellites. Is that a strategy?’ he asked. ‘Minister, that is a miracle’, they reportedly replied.46 Miracles can happen in European projects then—with enough flexibility and imagination by all parties and a shared commitment to a form of cooperation that left room for the expression of diverse national interests.

 Theo Lefèvre, quoted in John Krige, Fifty Years of European Cooperation, 166.  Michael Heseltine, ‘Britain and ESA’ in European Space Agency, The History of the European Space Agency: Proceedings of an International Symposium, London, 11–13 November 1998 (Noordwijk: ESA 1999), 25–9, here 26. 45 46

CHAPTER 12

Subregional Integration in East Central Europe: Strategies in the In-Between Sphere Katalin Miklóssy

Interpretations of the significance of East Central European (ECE) alliances have changed over the past few decades reflecting, first and foremost, the degree of support for the European Union (EU) shown by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary—today often referred to as the Visegrad 4 (V4). During the post-communist transition period, subregional organisations such as the Visegrad union and the Central European Initiative (CEI) were discussed primarily within the context of the EU, framed by the widespread use of the slogan ‘Back to Europe’.1 In this narrative, subregional integration was pictured as a shared effort by former Eastern bloc countries to align themselves with the advanced

1  While EU documents and those of the East Central European organisations and states employ the term ‘regional’ for describing ECE cooperation, I intend to maintain the distinction used generally in this volume reflecting on EU integration as ‘regional’ and ECE activities as ‘subregional’.

K. Miklóssy (*) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_12

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societies of Western Europe.2 Since the mid-2010s, by contrast, the Visegrad alliance in particular has been reflected upon as a ‘special club’ kept together only by its members’ critical stance towards the EU. Particularly after the migration crisis of 2015, the V4 was depicted as a quarrelsome bunch of countries lacking common interests.3 While historically the EU supported subregional development as one of the key components of its cohesion policy, it seems that subregional integration might actually challenge the paramount goals of EU unity.4 This chapter uses a different angle to evaluate the role and working mechanism of subregional entities, which in East Central Europe have an equally long, if not longer, history than other European regional ventures. It is therefore important to investigate what kind of relevance the legacy of the subregional option bares on the countries’ contemporary national and EU choices. This study claims that we need more research on the complex and simultaneous interaction of multiple levels: between the European and subregional spheres, between the subregional and national stages and between the national and EU levels. Hence, the central questions are: how did the East Central European V4 states navigate between these different levels, and what was the main role of the subregional level in comparison to the European framework? What was the incentive to collaborate and what kind of institutions and modus operandi did they create for that purpose? To answer these questions, the chapter will first take a look at the historical roots of ECE collaboration, then discuss how the 2  Mikko Lagerspetz, ‘Postsocialism as a Return: Notes on a Discursive Strategy’, East European Politics and Societies 13, no. 2 (1999): 377–90; Heather Grabbe and Kristy Hughes, ‘Central and Eastern European Views on EU Enlargement: Political Debates and Public Opinion’, in Karen Henderson (ed.), Back to Europe (London and New  York: Routledge, 2004), 185–202. See also Martin Dangerfield, ‘V4: A New Brand for Europe? Ten Years of Post-Accession Regional Cooperation in Central Europe’, Poznan University of Economic Review 14, no. 4 (2014): 71–90. 3  Benjamin Cunningham, ‘Visegrad’s Illusory Union’, Politico, 16 September 2016, available at https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-hungary-czech-republic-slovakia-visegradsillusory-union-bratislava-summit-eu-migration-orban-fico-sobotka-szydlo (accessed 30 October 2019); Robert Anderson, ‘Visegrad: Macron Plays Divide and Rule in Central Europe’, BNE  – Intellinews, 24 August 2017, available at https://www.intellinews.com/ visegrad-macron-plays-divide-and-rule-in-central-europe-127732/ (accessed 30 October 2019); Lili Bayer, ‘Unity of Central Europe’s Visegrad Group Under Strain’, Politico, 31 August 2017, available at https://www.politico.eu/article/unity-of-central-europes-visegrad-group-under-strain/ (accessed 30 October 2019). 4  European Commission, ‘History of the Regional Policy’, available at https://ec.europa. eu/regional_policy/en/policy/what/history/ (accessed 30 October 2019).

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legacy of past alliances can be seen in the post-communist drive to establish parallel organisations and why parallelism was necessary in the first place. Finally, it will analyse how the EU has reacted to subregional integration during and after the accession of the V4, and what kind of interactive dynamics the attitudes of the EU launched in the evolution of subregional affinity. The article makes three main arguments. First, subregionality, despite its transnational surface, actually emphasises the national agenda and turns it into a spatially extended ‘transnational nationalism’.5 Second, the longue durée perspective reveals that subregionalism plays a central role in preserving sovereignty and integrity, which is why the ECE countries have been ready to recalibrate their national interests in order to reach a common ground for the sake of subregional unity. Third, the most fluent and enduring collaboration has been achieved when subregional formations were rooted in resembling development models. The theoretical starting point is based on the claim that East Central Europe represents a double ‘in-betweenness’: an intersection of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ intermediary spaces. Horizontally, this region is situated at a crossroad where Eastern (mostly Russian) and Western (mostly German) influences have mixed and great power interests clashed over centuries.6 Vertically, the subregional level serves as a mediator between the national and external and/or supranational stages and has a profound impact on how the national and international spheres interact with each other. I argue that horizontal in-betweenness creates the spatial context for subregional actors to organise, establish institutions, invent short-term strategies and generate long-term plans. However, the vertical in-­ betweenness provides the ultimate means to transform horizontal geopolitical limitations into leverage. The shared experience of navigating between this double orientation created common discourses and policy practices through which the regional actors emphasised either 5  For more on this see for instance Riva Kastoryano, ‘Transnational Nationalism: Redefining Nation and Territory’, in Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro and Danilo Petranovich (eds.), Identities, Affiliations and Allegiances (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Devashree Gupta, ‘Nationalism Across Borders; Transnational Nationalist Advocacy in the European Union’, Comparative European Politics, 6 (2008): 61–80. 6  Jenö Szûcs, Vázlat Európa három regiójáról (Budapest: Magvetö, 1983); Balázs Trencsényi, ‘Central Europe’, in Diana Mishkova and Balázs Trencsényi (eds.), European Regions and Boundaries: A Conceptual History (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2017).

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normative-formal connections (such as institutional linkages and formal networks) or symbolic-informal relatedness (such as ideological-cultural affinity, memories, public consciousness).7 The in-between phenomenon, however, is not only a matter of how the countries formulate their alliances but also how it affects domestic politics and profound societal choices. Incentives to collaborate came from common concerns over security, economic necessity and societal development.

The Power of Historical Experience By exploring subregional formations over the longue durée, what emerges is a highly interesting pattern where two trends run parallel most of the time. On the one hand, ideational deliberations sketched long-term developments but these schemes never materialised. The realised integrative constructions, on the other hand, were pragmatic reactions to changes in the international arena. In both trends, three types of integration emerged: alliances, federative design and the development model. Alliances were immediate reactions to dramatic changes in the security environment and aspired to establish institutional structures with formal and informal methods of working. Federations represented a deeper level of cooperation, which evolved towards centralisation with one state in a leading position. It is seldom remembered, for example, that Austria in the sixteenth century originally offered a federative context for small nations seeking shelter from the Ottoman invasion. By the seventeenth century this federation transformed into the Habsburg Empire. Perhaps the most intensive and lasting integrative model occurred when collaboration was based on a shared idea of development. This type of ideational bond between the countries created a symbiotic collaboration that made institutional structures less important in steering or timing cooperation. There were also fewer incentives for the individual states to seek a central role. While alliances and federations relied on normative-formal settings, the common platform of development leaned on a more authentic association. Common interest towards subregionality emerged already in the Middle Ages. In 1335, the Polish King Casimir the Great, the Bohemian (Czech) King John Luxemburg and the Hungarian King Carl Robert met in the Hungarian royal palace, located at the time in the small Hungarian 7  József Benedek, ‘Régiók kialakulása és változása’, Tér és társadalom 24, no. 3 (2010): 193–201.

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town of Visegrád, to create a customs union to stand up against Austria’s staple rights that harmed these kingdoms’ Western trade. While this alliance was short-lived, it created an ‘area specific model’ to seek security via cooperation against the changing geopolitical realities. The age of nationalism in the nineteenth century launched a renewed enthusiasm for small nations to fight against the imperial context. The federalisation of the Habsburg Empire and its successor, the Austro-Hungarian Dual monarchy (1867–1918), was widely perceived as a viable framework. Hungarians such as Lajos Kossuth and Oszkár Jászi, Czechs like Thomas Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Benes and Ignacy Jan Paderewsky from Poland, all proposed a ‘New Central Europe’.8 This idea simultaneously challenged Eastern autocracy, Western imperialism and both Eastern and Western Marxism, since these ideologies denied the paradigm of the nation state. The First World War modified the international environment dramatically, and the disintegration of great empires gave way to new sovereign states in East Central Europe.9 The knowledge of being situated in a buffer zone between the Western powers and Soviet Russia had an impact on their conceptions of security. These new countries had to adjust national interest within the radically changed international context—defined by the war-winning powers who tended to favour collective security.10 Great powers were eager to offer various scenarios for subregional integration as a means of competing over the area. One such alliance was proposed by France seeking to increase influence in the region, which in the previous decades had been a target of both pan-Slavism (driven by Russia) and pan8  Lajos Kossuth, ‘A Dunai Szövetség tervezete’, 1 May 1862, Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár, available at http://mek.niif.hu/04800/04882/html/szabadku0178.html (accessed 30 October 2019); Oszkár Jászi, ‘Magyarország jövöje és a dunai egyesült államok’ (Budapest 1918), Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár, available at http://mek.oszk. hu/09300/09364/09364.pdf (accessed 30 October 2019); Thomas G. Masaryk, The Problem of Small Nations in the European Crisis (London: The Council for the Study of International Relations, 1916); Thomas G. Masaryk, The New Europe. The Slav Standpoint (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1972); Eduard Benes and Jaroslav Paponsek, Gedanke und Tat: aus den Schriften und Reden (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1976); Eduard Benes, ‘First Exposé to Parliament (30 September 1919)’, in Eduard Benes, Year of Work (Prague: Orbis, 1919), 9–38; Hanna Marczewska-Zagdanska and Janina Dorosz, ‘Wilson  – Paderewski – Masaryk: Their Visions of Independence and Conceptions of How to Organize Europe’, Acta Poloniae Historica 73 (1996): 55–69. 9  Janos C. Andrew, East Central Europe in the Modern World. The Politics of the Borderlands from Pre- to Postcommunism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 411. 10  Ibid., 100.

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Germanism. France put pressure on Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Romania to form the ‘Little Entente’, a security alliance designed to prevent territorial revisions by war-losers Hungary and Bulgaria. The Little Entente would also provide a framework for economic cooperation. French policy aimed to polarise Central Europe but the countries did not adapt to its vision of friends and foes. France needed Poland to create a strong Cordon Sanitaire (or buffer zone) against Soviet Russia but the French initiative failed to take into consideration that, for Poland, historical symbolic-informal relations bore more weight than formal-institutional advantages. Poland had territorial disputes with the Czechs but traditionally cordial relations with the Hungarians.11 Future President of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš, in turn suggested a compromise, turning the Little Entente into a Central European league which included Poland, Bulgaria, Greece, the Baltic countries and Ukraine. The aim was to create a wider belt against Soviet Russia and Austrian, German and Hungarian revisionists.12 French influence faded away by mid-1930s, even though it made efforts to develop the Little Entente institutionally by establishing a permanent secretariat in 1932.13 With Germany rising in the west and Stalinist Russia strengthening in the east, in-betweenness became an increasingly topical question in East Central Europe to address the context of the times. Poland came up with a wide-ranging strategic concept—the Intermarium idea—which envisaged a broad coalition of Eastern European states reaching from Finland in the north to Greece in the south and with Poland at its centre. The coalition was supposed to strengthen the cumulative military capacity and geopolitical weight of small countries caught between the politically turbulent Soviet Union and the West.14

11  Piotr Wandycz, ‘The Little Entente: Sixty Years Later’, The Slavonic and East European Review 59, no. 4 (1981): 548–64. 12  Eduard Benes, ‘The Little Entente’, Foreign Affairs 1, no. 1 (1922): 66–72. 13  Pál Dunay, ‘Subregional Cooperation in East Central Europe: the Visegrád Group and the Central European Free Trade Agreement’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 32, no. 1 (2003): 45–56, here 45. 14  Piotr Cieplucha, ‘Prometeizm i koncepcja Międzymorza w praktyce polityczno-prawnej oraz dyplomacji II RP’, Studia Prawno-ekonomiczne 93 (2014): 39–55; Robert Istok, Irina Kozarova and Anna Polackova, ‘The Intermarium as a Polish Geopolitical Concept in History and in the Present’, Geopolitics, available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ful l/10.1080/14650045.2018.1551206 (accessed 30 October 2019).

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Another scenario was initiated by Italy in 1937. The ‘Third Europe’ concept included Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Italy—with double centres of Hungary and Poland—resulting in a common border dividing the territory of Czechoslovakia.15 On the eve of the Nazi Anschluss the following March, it was obvious that Hitler would turn on Czechoslovakia—hence German influence had to be countered. This ‘horizontal axis’, as the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Galeazzo Ciano, called it, would contain both German and Soviet expansion to East Central Europe.16 Third Europe would further help Italy to strengthen its positions in the Berlin-Rome axis vis-à-vis Germany.17 Interestingly, the drive for subregional integration during the interwar period took place at a time when the majority of these countries had just achieved independence. Yet, there appeared a seemingly mutual understanding that cooperation was inevitable for protecting sovereignty. Nevertheless, while there were numerous great power initiatives aiming to create and control subregional alliances, the ECE countries modified these scenarios for their own purposes. After the Second World War, the governing incentive for collaboration was to ensure economic prosperity and societal development, in contrast to the security-driven aims of the interwar years. The Cold War juxtaposition further revised the notion of regionality: the countries of East Central Europe were cut off from their Western counterparts and the communist order pushed the countries to a new orbit of development. Subregional collaboration was reorganised institutionally by the Moscow-led Eastern bloc ally system, which emphasised a centre-periphery structure in the beginning. The most important frameworks of formal cooperation were the multidimensional network of Friendship and Mutual Assistance Treaties, the Council for Mutual 15  Magda Ádám (ed.), Volume 2: A Müncheni szerzôdés létrejötte, document no. 17, in László Zsigmond (ed.), Diplomáciai iratok Magyarország külpolitikájához, 1936–1945 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1962–1982). 16  Minutes of conversation between Prince Paul and Ciano, 25 March 1937. Cited in J.  B. Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis, 1934–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 83. Also Malcolm Muggeridge, ed., Ciano’s Diary, 1937–1938, entry 9 March 1938 (London: Dutton, 1952). 17  Lajos Kerekes (ed.), Volume 1: A Berlin-Roma tengely kialakulása és Ausztria annexiója, 1936–1938, documents no. 354, 357; Ádám (ed.), Volume 2: A Müncheni szerzôdés létrejötte, documents no. 123, 115, 382, both in Zsigmond (ed.), Diplomáciai iratok Magyarország külpolitikájához; Jozef Beck, Final Report (New York: R. Speller, 1957), 143.

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Economic Assistance (CMEA) economic alliance (addressed in Falk Flade’s chapter in this book) and the security organisation of the Warsaw Pact. Since the ‘satellites’ were unable to change their geopolitical situation, they gradually developed survival strategies to come to terms with the status quo. A new opportunity opened up when the Stalinist development model, based on heavy industry and extensive economic growth, reached its end.18 Reform communism was a typical in-between invention of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland that relied on a market socialist model, blending Western elements with the Eastern system. It opened up the possibility for entrepreneurship, small-scale private property, consumption-­led industry and more liberal social atmosphere.19 This in-­ between development strengthened further in the 1970s due to the Helsinki process, which—by emphasising multilateralism after decades of superpower-led polarisation—helped the ECE countries to re-establish direct contacts with the West.20 This pragmatic attitude towards Western opportunities, lacking nearly all Marxist-Leninist ideological inclinations, bore a consequence on the reformers’ relations with the Kremlin. While the ECE states were unable to establish an independent coalition, they nevertheless allied unofficially to protect Western trade against the Russian aims of deepening CMEA integration.21 Increasing interactions with the West stimulated dissidents’ discussions about the ‘Third Europe’ concept as a development scenario. Prominent figures drawn from the Polish, Czech and Hungarian intelligentsia argued that the East Central Europeans were mere objects of history and simple 18  Extensive growth is an economic model where the increase of industrial production is based on the quantitative extension of input of raw materials, energy and human workload. 19  Katalin Miklóssy, ‘Khrushchevism after Khrushchev: The Rise of National Interest in the Eastern Bloc’, in Jeremy Smith and Melanie Ilic (eds.), Khrushchev in the Kremlin: Policy and Government in the Soviet Union, 1953–1964 (London and New  York: Routledge, 2010), 150–70. 20  Katalin Miklóssy, ‘The Helsinki Process and the Finnish Model from Small States’ Perspective: Hungarian and Romanian CSCE-Strategies in Comparison’, in Anders Blomqvist, Constantin Iordachi and Balázs Trencsényi (eds.), Comparisons and Entanglements: Hungary and Romania beyond National Narratives (New York and London: Peter Lang, 2013), 485–514. 21  Suvi Kansikas, Socialist Countries Face the European Community: Soviet Bloc Controversies over East-West Trade (New York and London: Peter Lang, 2014). See also Suvi Kansikas, ‘Room to manouvre? National interests and coalition building in the CMEA, 1969–1974’, in Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy (eds.), Reassessing Cold War Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 193–209.

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pawns in the superpowers’ game, and that this shared experience had a devastating effect on people’s identity. The way out from this stalemate, it appeared, would be for geopolitical in-betweenness to grow into a new in-between political option, challenging both capitalism and state socialism. Third Europe would rely on civil society as the ultimate source of political power.22 The historical examples discussed above show that the different integrative models overlapped and even evolved from one another, indicating that numerous alternatives were seen as available in any one period of time. Some of these plans remained unrealised while some were carried out, giving way again to new ideas for reinventing subregional collaborations in an indefinite cycle. The historical experience of enduring alliances indicated that the common stand helped to keep at bay the nearby great powers’ urge to extend influences over the territory. The image of a concerted group lent more weight to the international arena and expanded the individual countries’ elbowroom. Locating themselves between East and West provided manoeuvring potential.

The Role of Parallel Subregional Organisations in European Integration The dramatic change in the international power equilibrium following the end of Cold War influenced the political and economic choices of the ECE countries. Amid the nascent post-1989 environment, the common dilemmas of democratisation and marketisation intensified the push towards subregional cooperation. The main question confronting decision-makers was how to make the fastest transition from the Sovietcentred framework towards Western institutions. Collective action was deemed essential to helping further the prospects  of EU membership because, as was widely perceived at the time, many in Western Europe were not overly keen to start enlargement negotiations with the former Eastern bloc members. Only a few years prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall the then European Community (EC) had still supported the erosion of the Soviet system. And while diplomatic relations between the Community and the communist bloc had been put on a more constructive footing by 22  The idea was developed by dissident intellectuals Vaclav Havel in his Power of the Powerless (1978), György Konrád in his Antipolitics (1984), Milan Kundera in The Tragedy of Central Europe (1984) and Adam Michnik in his Letters from the Dansk Prison (1985).

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June 1988—a theme discussed in this volume by Alexandra Köpping— the subsequent collapse of communist regimes still took the EC by surprise. Hence, the first discussions with the East Central European countries tended to centre on creating partnership agreements rather than opening up membership negotiations. Delaying accession therefore became a central tactic for the EC/EU over the coming decade, even if the stability of the region was considered vital. Attention was instead paid to ensuring that the large ECE market could become an economically reliable partner with which to trade; this in turn required a predictable, stable local political context.23 Consequently, the EU established new instruments to confine these countries, most notably the Pologne-Hongrois Action pour la Reconstruction Economic (PHARE) programme, which was signed with Poland and Hungary in January 1990 and which in December 1991 led to a Partnership Agreement—a sort of two-step process later extended to other transitioning countries.24 Despite being deferred in the short-term, the hope of EU membership nevertheless gave succour to democratisers in the East. It was the prospect of joining the EU, combined with the sense of needing to accelerate this accession process, which gave fresh relevance to the Visegrad union, this time institutionalised in the form of the Visegrad Group or, more commonly, the V4. Its founding declaration was signed on 15 February 1991 by prominent figures from the region, including Vaclav Havel (Czech and Slovak Republic), Lech Walesa (Poland) and József Antall (Hungary). As each of them made clear, the priority of collaboration was to secure independence and assist in their democratisation.25 While the largest portion of 23  Agence Europe, Europe Daily Bulletin no. 4957, 17 February 1989, Historical Archives of the European Union, available at https://archives.eui.eu/en/fonds/444512?item=AGE-557 (accessed 30 March 2019); David Buchan, ‘EC Moves to Co-ordinate Policy on Eastern Europe’, Financial Times, 25 April 1989; Karen E. Smith, The Making of EU Foreign Policy: The Case of Eastern Europe (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 43–65. 24  Council of the European Union, ‘Council Regulation (EEC) No 3906/89 of 18 December 1989 on economic aid to certain countries of Central and Eastern Europe’, Publications Office of the EU, available at https://publications.europa.eu/en/publicationdetail/-/publication/2f1d2bc5-9898-4b73-b9dd-52efaaba3bde/language-en/formatPDF/source-search (accessed 30 October 2019). 25  Visegrad Group, ‘Visegrad Declaration 1991: Declaration on Cooperation between the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Hungary in Striving for European Integration’, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/ visegrad-declarations/visegrad-declaration-110412 (accessed 30 March 2019).

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the declaration was concerned with the internal development of the V4, however, it became obvious that achieving EU membership was the prime engine for collaboration. To this end, the former Eastern bloc countries would need a new solution for a common market to replace the CMEA, which was officially dissolved a few months later in June 1991. By December 1992, the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) had therefore been established, with multiple purposes.26 In addition to establishing a free trade zone among themselves, CEFTA would help to improve competitiveness vis-à-vis Western Europe and demonstrate the ability of the ECE countries to cooperate. Hence, the initials CEFTA purposefully resembled those of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which had promoted economic integration with non-Community Western European countries since the 1960s. In so doing, CEFTA sought to become the ‘Benelux of the East’.27 An equally important aim of CEFTA was to liberalise trade within the ECE region. This is why CEFTA was originally linked exclusively to the Visegrad Group and was founded on strict accession rules. In 1995, for example, the countries had to change CEFTA’s founding agreement in order to include Slovenia, which was then approaching the level of economic development as already seen by the V4. Later Romania and Bulgaria joined. CEFTA would also help increase intraregional trade, despite the fact that after the EU’s Copenhagen summit in June 1993 (more on which below) the attention of the ECE states focused almost exclusively on building economic relations with the EU as a main partner.28 In the 2000s, moreover, it became obvious that the CEFTA was a typical transition-arrangement: in a July 2003 meeting held in Bled on the eve of their accession to the EU, the members decided that CEFTA would automatically cease upon EU membership.29 Since CEFTA and free trade matters were separated institutionally from the V4 and functioned as a

26  Central European Trade Agreement, 21 December 1992, available at https://web. archive.org/web/20070614090538/http://www.worldtradelaw.net/fta/agreements/ cefta.pdf (accessed 30 March 2019). 27  Andrzej Rudka and Kálmán Mizsei, ‘The Fall of Trade in East Central Europe: Is CEFTA the Right Solution?’ Russian & East European Finance and Trade 30, no. 1 (1994): 6–31, here 18. 28  Ibid., 6–31. 29  Lajos Arday, ‘Közép-Európa és a Visegrádi Négyek’, International Relations Quarterly 6, no. 1 (2015): 1–5.

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parallel organisation, Visegrad could focus on other topics of cooperation and thus continue to exist long after CEFTA had served its purpose. The above-mentioned Copenhagen summit transformed the inner dynamics of the ECE countries because, for the first time, EU leaders declared that the Visegrad Group could well become full members in the Union with corresponding access to the single market. This was soon followed by the association agreements signed during the course of 1993 and 1994. The EU, however, did not give any specific date for starting concrete negotiations until 1997. This delay tactic was a game-changer for the Visegrad alliance, the culmination of which threw into question its political worth. For one, the V4 did not need group-effort anymore in order to improve their visibility in the West. Moreover, cooperation relied on the willingness to compromise, which the deteriorating personal relations of leading figures made increasingly difficult. And the diverging orientation of the V4 was a clear sign that the countries were beginning to lose faith in the idea that the V4 alliance would accelerate accession. The velvet divorce of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 put these countries into a further difficult position, which Poland and Hungary utilised to speed up their own accession procedures with the EU. Thus emerged a degree of competition over which country could possibly secure EU membership first. The Czech Prime Minister, Vaclav Klaus, stated that since his country was more advanced than the rest, it was able to join the EU any time by itself. Cordial relations with Germany were more important for the Czech Republic than the Visegrad Group.30 At about the same time, Poland started having problems with political instability and its attention turned from regional to domestic matters.31 Meanwhile, due to growing tensions with Hungary over minority issues the Slovakian nationalist Prime Minister, Vladimir Meciar, oriented towards the Russian Federation and away from regional collaboration. For their part, the Hungarians focused on the Balkans and simultaneously sought to improve their relations with Austria and Italy, both of which were members of the CEI.

30  Vaclav Klaus, ‘The Czech Republic and European Integration’, Perspectives, no. 2 (1994): 7–11. Also Milos Gregor and Alena Mackova, ‘Euroscepticism the Czech Way: Analysis of Vaclav Klaus’ Speeches’, European Journal of Communication 30, no. 4 (2015): 404–17. 31  Between 1992 and 1998 there were six consecutive administrations.

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The CEI, a parallel institution to the Visegrad alliance and CEFTA, was originally a multilateral collaboration founded in November 1989 by Austria, Italy, Hungary and Yugoslavia.32 This foursome soon enlarged to include Czechoslovakia (1990) and Poland (1991), while Yugoslavia was suspended because of the ensuing succession wars. In the early 1990s, it was not yet evident that the CEI would struggle to develop into a more efficient organisation. Thus, it was a safety option should the V4 alliance have failed to meet expectations. The CEI resembled the interwar ‘horizontal axis’ idea and Italian aims to increase a presence in the Central European sphere to counterbalance Germany’s traditional interest. Austria, on the other hand, saw an opportunity to retrieve influence on what once was the Habsburg Empire. Along with these aspirations, Austria oriented towards the Visegrad Group but the V4 disagreed about whether to allow Austria to become a member. By 1996, the CEI expanded to include a further 17 countries—including the new post-Yugoslav countries, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. The CEI was a loose alliance with the task of easing the way towards Western institutions. Yet it could never agree upon any common political programme or institutional infrastructure. Rather, it remained a forum of exchanging ideas about current political and economic problems. By 1997, the CEI was largely redundant from the East Central European perspective, partly because of the expansion towards areas that were not considered as benchmark countries for the V4.33 The CEI was also taken over by the EU in the following decade and turned into an instrument to deal with Eastern Partnership countries and EU candidate countries. Its purpose changed to strengthen democratisation in the Eastern neighbourhood by channelling funds and organising governmental meetings.34 Like the CEI, CEFTA was also losing significance as EU accession moved closer. And because of the improving prospect of EU entry, the V4 once again began to invest in the Visegrad alliance.

32  Central European Initiative, ‘Central European Initiative 1989–2009 Years’, available at https://www.cei.int/sites/default/files/publications/downloads/booklet%20final%20low. pdf (accessed 30 March 2019). 33  Dunay, ‘Subregional’, 47. 34  See the official website of the CEI: ‘Central European Initiative 30 Years’, available at https://www.cei.int/ (accessed 14 October 2019). Also CEI, ‘CEI Plan of Action, 2018–2020’, CEI website, available at https://www.cei.int/sites/default/files/file/PoA%20 2018-2020%20FINAL%20web%20(006).pdf (accessed 22 January 2020).

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This renewed appeal of Visegrad cooperation emerged towards the close of 1998.35 Beyond the immediate prospect of joining the EU, several other factors helped ease V4 rapprochement. Personnel changes were one: Klaus and Meciar had left office, and their successors put more weight on subregional cooperation.36 The Czech economic leap had worn out too, questioning the viability of entering the EU alone. And the need to once again work together within the confines of the V4 seemed all the more important because in March 1999 the East Central European countries were set to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Seen in this light, Visegrad had the potential increasingly to turn into a security community. The Visegrad alliance thus met in October 1998 in Budapest and declared it was time to restart collaboration. Just over a year later, at a meeting in Bratislava, the countries also agreed that new content and ways of working were required to intensify their relations.37 Cooperation subsequently extended not only to security and the willingness to establish joint military-industrial production sectors but also to day-to-day issues such as traffic, communication, environment and cultural and educational affairs. The new International Visegrad Fund (addressed in Martin Dangerfield’s chapter in this book) would in turn help with exchanging ideas and integrating officials in the region.38 While this initiative resembled the EU’s principles of interaction and mobility, it nevertheless openly challenged the EU as it aimed to strengthen a subregional identity instead of a broader European one.

Divide et impera: EU’s Stand on the V4 Amid this context, the EU grew increasingly suspicious of the Visegrad’s subregional alliance. The Budapest and Bratislava meetings had both seen the revival of the idea that the V4 shared common interests, and this was 35  Károly Gruber, ‘In Search of Better Coordination and Representation of Shared Interests: Visegrad cooperation within the European Union’, Foreign Policy Review, no. 7 (2010): 37–53. 36  The nationalists Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar were replaced by the liberal Milos Zeman and Mikulas Zurinda. 37  Visegrad Group, ‘Contents of Visegrad Cooperation 1999: Contents of Visegrad Cooperation approved by the Prime Ministers’ Summit, Bratislava on 14th May 1999’, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/cooperation/contents-of-visegrad-110412 (accessed 30 March 2019). 38  Visegrad Group, ‘International Visegrad Fund’, available at http://www.visegradgroup. eu/visegrad-fund/international-visegrad (accessed 30 March 2019).

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likely to have a profound impact on the way in which they approached the EU as accession talks finally got underway. The EU was itself well aware that through concerted action the Visegrad countries might try to negotiate more favourable terms of entry. Despite its Copenhagen Declaration having stated a desire to deal with the Visegrad Group ‘en bloc’, it thus now decided to keep the process strictly bilateral. This was confirmed by the European Commission’s publication Agenda 2000 about the strategy of enlargement after the Luxemburg summit in 1997.39 In the meantime, the Visegrad countries’ prime ministers met regularly between 1998 and 1999.40 They were anxious to get the EU to announce the timetable for accession, which it finally did in March 1999 by proclaiming 2004 as the year of integration. The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner, Günter Verheugen, later presented a roadmap.41 Keeping the budget negotiations strictly on a bilateral basis and behind closed doors was an efficient tactic to play the V4 against each other. The common stand that had started to build in Budapest and Bratislava hence ended abruptly because EU support for the accession countries was understood as a zero-sum game, and each prime minister tried to squeeze out as much development aid as possible for their own country. The negotiation strategy of the EU, however, bore a counter-productive consequence: while it indeed helped to downplay the common subregional stand, it also strengthened the national and even nationalist agenda. Before accession, old and new ‘Europe’ clashed, which was a warning sign for the future unity of the EU. NATO membership increased the influence of the US in Central Europe, and the V4 did not hesitate to show loyalty in 2003 by participating in the US mission in Iraq, irrespective of the fact that France and Germany refused to do so. The US State Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, proclaimed the new NATO allies as ‘new Europe’ and claimed that the focal point of political power on the continent appeared to be moving from West to East.42 The French President, 39  European Commission, ‘Agenda 2000: For a Stronger and Wider Union’, Bulletin of the European Union Supplement 5/97, available at https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/sites/agriculture/files/cap-history/agenda-2000/com97-2000_en.pdf (accessed 30 March 2019). 40  The prime ministers of the V4 met three times within one year: 21 October 1998, 14 May 1999 and 15–16 October 1999. 41  Wilfried Loth, Building Europe: A History of European Unification (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 372–74. 42  Donald Rumsfeld, ‘Briefs at the Foreign Press Center’, 23 January 2003, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0GnRJEPXn4 (accessed 30 March 2019).

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Jacques Chirac, became annoyed by Rumsfeld’s mockery and offended new EU candidates as ‘infantile’. He stated bluntly that newcomers ‘missed a good opportunity to keep quiet’—which, unsurprisingly, poisoned the atmosphere still further.43 French insults had a further unintended impact on events. From the point of view of EU unity, the Visegrad countries decided to modernise their collaboration patterns, hoping to strengthen their common ground and better represent their interests within the EU. In May 2004, the V4 prime ministers met and stated that while accession to NATO and the EU were ‘historic milestones’, strengthening a regional or ‘Central European identity’ was equally important.44 The streamlining of activities was, however, not regarded favourably in the EU. Chirac’s successor, Nicholas Sarkozy, warned the Visegrad countries that regular V4 meetings before EU summits were undesirable and ‘could raise questions’—ignoring of course that the French and German leaders also met regularly before EU summits.45 Yet another French president—Emmanuel Macron—made an attempt to undermine Visegrad unity, on the related matters of migrant workers in France and EU migration policy. On 23 August 2017, as a sign of his annoyance, Macron travelled to Salzburg to meet Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, while leaving Poland and Hungary out. And when doing so he promised the Czechs tolerance with migrant quotas and, for the Slovaks, the opportunity to integrate them into the centre of EU decision-making. Neither ‘sticks’, mentioned above, nor this ‘carrot’ policy worked in breaking up the V4. There was, after all, much more at stake. 43  President Chirac presented his accusations on the candidate countries in a press conference on Iraq in Brussels 17 February 2003, see for example The Guardian, 18 February 2003. The Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cimoszewicz and the Czech MEP Vladimir Lavtuska reacted immediately. See James Graff, ‘Europe’s Family Feud’, Time Magazine 14 February 2003; Mart Laar, ‘New Europe won’t keep quiet until Europe is new’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 19 February 2003; Judy Dempsey, ‘Summit outcome leaves future members reeling’, Financial Times, 19 February 2003. 44  Visegrad Group, ‘Visegrad Declaration 2004: Declaration of Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Poland and the Slovak Republic on cooperation of the Visegrad Group after their accession to the European Union, 12 May 2004’, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/visegrad-declarations/visegrad-declaration-110412-1 (accessed 30 October 2019). 45  Honor Mahony, ‘Sarközy warns Visegrad countries not to make a habit of pre-summit meetings’, EUobserver, 4 November 2009, available at https://euobserver.com/ news/28928 (accessed 30 October 2019).

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Streamlining Cooperation Within the EU The original Visegrad alliance had as its goals the furthering of democratisation, economic development and speeding up accession to the EU. These aims were achieved in 2004 but the alliance was still needed. A new strategy was established to defend V4 interests in two ways: on the one hand, it was deemed paramount to come up with constructive ideas in developing EU policy. On the other hand, it was equally important to become an equal member of the EU because, from the newcomers’ point of view, it was an upstairs-downstairs type of double-standard community. Soon after accession in May 2004, V4 prime ministers consequently defined as a new priority their active involvement in shaping further enlargement of the EU towards the east and south-east of the continent.46 It was clear that the V4 needed their own buffer zone in an area that was struck by decades of Yugoslavian war, violent nationalism and an unpredictable Russia—all of which was in their vicinity. In the 2005 Budapest summit, the V4 launched Regional Partnership combining also Austria and Slovenia. The target of the partnership was stability and security in the Western Balkans. The Czech EU presidency in 2009 provided an opportunity to further subregional aims in this respect. As Marek Neuman has pointed out, this was also a testing ground of what could be achieved by the Czechs with group-power behind them.47 Since the Czech Republic held the rotating presidency of the Visegrad Group between June 2007 and June 2008, its leadership consulted the V4 to formulate its intended agenda for the EU presidency and get support on the EU level. The Czechs aimed to ‘streamline’ Visegrad cooperation, especially in relation to security in the wider regional context.48 Within this environment, Poland became particularly active. Warsaw was for instance instrumental in designing a detailed policy agenda, the Eastern Partnership, designed to hinder Russian influence in the post-­ Soviet republics and create a buffer belt of sovereign states between Poland and Russia, realised with the help of the EU.49 The Eastern Partnership  Visegrad Group, ‘Visegrad Declaration 2004’.  Marek Neuman, ‘The Visegrad Group as a Vehicle for Promoting National Interest in the European Union: The Case of the Czech Republic’, Politics in Central Europe 13, no. 1 (2015): 55–67. 48  Visegrad Group, ‘Czech Presidency of the Visegrad Group (June 2007–June 2008)’, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/presidency-programs/20072008-czech-110412 (accessed 30 October 2019). 49  Katalin Miklóssy and Justyna Pierzynska, ‘Regional strategic culture in the Visegradcountries: Poland and Hungary’, in Katalin Miklóssy and Hanna Smith (eds.), Strategic 46 47

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policy initiative was accepted by all V4 members and in the process established a new way of working within the EU.50 This was a good example of how countries ‘upload’ subregionally important issues onto the EU decision-­making agenda through joint action. The Eastern Partnership programme became a broadly supported EU policy, launched officially at the Prague summit in May 2009. The buffer-belt idea was closely related to the need to rethink security matters from subregional perspectives. The formation of the Visegrad Battle Group was raised already in 2009/10, but later in 2013 it was presented as the V4 contribution to EU defence policy and in 2014 it was offered as a contribution to NATO.51 In addition to security matters, the economic realities of EU membership helped to intensify V4 cooperation. As newcomers, they realised that the EU’s single market was to open up only gradually and that mobility of their citizens would be restricted.52 Being ‘second class members’ obliged the V4 to develop a common strategy to pressure the EU to improve access to the Schengen area.53 The cohesion of the V4 grew gradually stronger in subsequent years, alongside the rise of their EU criticism.54 Culture in Russia’s Neighbourhood: Change and Continuity in an In-Between Space (Lanham MD: Lexington, 2019). 50  Visegrad Group, ‘Joint Statement of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Visegrad Group Countries and of Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and Sweden’, 24 November 2008, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/2008/joint-statement-ofthe-110412-4 (accessed 30 October 2019). 51  Ivo Samson, ‘Assessment of Visegrad cooperation from a security perspective: Is the Visegrad Group Still Vital in the “Zeros” of the 21st century?’, in Csaba Törő (ed.), Visegrad cooperation within NATO and CSDP, V4 Papers, no. 2, 2011, 9–40. See also Visegrad Group, ‘Annual Report 2009/2010 of the Hungarian V4 Presidency’, available at http:// www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/annual-reports/2009-2010-hungarian-110412 (accessed 30 October 2019); Piotr Bajda (ed.), ‘Report of the Polish Presidency of the Visegrad Group, July 2012–June 2013’ (Warsaw: Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, 2013), available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/ annual-reports (accessed 30 October 2019); Visegrad Group, ‘Report the Hungarian Presidency of the Visegrad Group, July 2013–June 2014’, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/annual-reports/report-hu-v4-pres-07 (accessed 30 October 2019). 52  Schengen Visa Info, ‘Schengen Agreement’, available at https://www.schengenvisainfo. com/schengen-agreement/(accessed 30 October 2019). 53  Ivan T.  Berend, Europe Since 1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 42–96. 54  See for example Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Hungary, ‘V4 Statement for the Future of Europe’, January 26 2018, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/calendar/2018/v4-statement-on-the (accessed 22 January 2020); Dangerfeld, ‘V4: A new brand for Europe?’

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The first signs of dissatisfaction with the EU became evident in the European Parliament elections in 2009 and 2014, which saw considerable success for EU-sceptic parties in the region.55 In 2013, during the Polish Visegrad presidency, the V4 stressed that subregional cooperation was in fact the cornerstone of the European Union’s policymaking framework and they intended to strengthen their cooperation.56 The Slovak Visegrad presidency in 2015 went further and underlined the importance of coordinating common positions in European affairs, under the motto ‘Dynamic Visegrad for Europe and Beyond’.57 Growing criticism of the EU, articulated in these Visegrad documents, can also be seen in the revival of different scenarios for increasing subregional unity. The recycled in-between concepts re-emerged in new forms. The Three Seas Initiative (Trimarium), promoted by the Polish President Jerzy Duda in 2015, evoked the interwar Intermarium concept, although it has been argued that it was an infrastructural and technological project aiming to modernise the EU’s eastern flank.58 Trimarium delineates the geopolitical space between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas and envisages cooperation among the Visegrad countries, the Baltic republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Austria. The affinity between the V4, and ensuing criticism of the EU, evolved most strongly however from the fact that similar national conservative political elites acquired power in these countries almost simultaneously. EU criticism also reflected an emerging new trend where the countries began to turn away from liberal democratic values.59 According to the annual reports of Freedom House on the state of democracy, it is obvious 55  Parties and elections in Europe, European Election Database, available at www.partiesand-elections.eu (accessed 10 December 2017). See also Olga Gyárfášová and Grigorij Mesežnikov (eds.), Visegrad elections 2010: Domestic Impact and European Consequences (Bratislava: Inštitút pre verejné otázky, 2011). 56  Bajda, ‘Report of the Polish Presidency of the Visegrad Group’. 57  Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, ‘Report of the Slovak Presidency of the Visegrad Group, July 2014–June 2015’, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/annual-reports (accessed 28 October 2019). 58  Grzegorz Lewicki, ‘The Three Seas Initiative Will Strengthen Europe’, Visegrad Insight, available at http://visegradinsight.eu/the-three-seas-initiative-will-strengthen-europe/ (accessed 28 October 2019). 59  Ladislav Cabada, ‘Democracy in East-Central Europe: Consolidated, Semi-Consolidated, Hybrid, Illiberal or Other?’, Politics in Central Europe 13, no. 2–3 (2017): 75–87. See also the Economist, ‘Illiberal Europe: Big, bad Visegrad’, 28 January 2016, available at https:// www.economist.com/europe/2016/01/28/big-bad-visegrad (accessed 30 October 2019).

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that EU membership did not strengthen democratic development in the Eastern European members. Between 2010 and 2019, the decline of democracy was noticeable in all Visegrad countries, especially in Hungary and Poland.60 According to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the Visegrad Group represents an indigenous subregional development, which is more progressive than that of the Western countries because it is more open to other options.61 Orbán called for strong Central European unity, basing its core on a solid alliance between Hungary and Poland.62 The migration crisis was a further watershed moment enhancing the Visegrad Group’s collaboration and common stand. Finding solutions to the migration problems overshadowed all other policy areas in the V4 meetings and in Visegrad-EU relations after 2015, since migration was perceived primarily as a security-related matter and a breach of sovereignty. In June 2018, the Visegrad Group even held a summit with Austria and declared their intention to set up a new mechanism to protect their borders on the Western Balkans.63 Finally, the different standing within the EU was once again demonstrated in May 2019 when EU-sceptics parties performed well in the European Parliament elections of that year and received a clear majority of all votes cast in the V4 states.64 The growing influence of the Visegrad Group became apparent during the nomination procedure of the 60  Freedom House, ‘Democracy in Retreat: Freedom in the World 2019’, available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2019/democracy-inretreat (accessed 30 January 2020). 61  Viktor Orbán, ‘Speech’, Website of the Hungarian Government, 26 October 2017, available at http://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/ prime-minister-viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-inauguration-of-bridgestone-s-new-plant (accessed 23 September 2019); also Viktor Orbán, ‘Speech’, Website of the Hungarian Government, 21 June 2017, available at http://www.kormany.hu/hu/a-miniszterelnok/ beszedek-publikaciok-interjuk/orban-viktor-beszede-a-visegradi-negyek-elnoksegenekatvetelekor (accessed 23 September 2019). 62  Visegrad Post, ‘Speeches of the Hungarian and Polish Prime Ministers on the Occasion of the Hungarian National Day, March 15 2019’, 16 March 2019, available at https:// visegradpost.com/en/2019/03/16/speeches-of-the-hungarian-and-polish-prime-ministers-on-the-occasion-of-the-hungarian-holiday-of-march-15-full-speeches/ (accessed 23 September 2019). 63  Visegrad Group, ‘Visegrad Group and Austria Summit Declaration on “Setting up a Mechanism for Assistance in Protecting the Borders of the Western Balkan Countries”’, 21 June 2018, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/visegrad-group-and (accessed 28 September 2019). 64   European Parliament, ‘2019 European Elections Results: Constitutive Session 23/10/2019’, available at https://www.election-results.eu/ (accessed 28 October 2019).

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new head of the European Commission when the entire Spitzenkandidat concept was torpedoed by the V4.65 The Visegrad alliance is an interesting phenomenon in itself. Institutional structures were kept intentionally weak because it was formed at a time when the goal of EU membership was deemed more significant. Still, it has remained the most enduring collaboration pattern precisely because of its institutional flexibility. As an agile organisation devoid of complicated decision-making structures, it is to react relatively fast to changes in the international arena and, from time-to-time, open up to other regional actors in the vicinity like Austria, Italy, Slovenia, the Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership countries. It seems that in international crisis situations, especially when sovereignty was felt threatened, the V4 states tend to intensify collaboration and are likely to seek a common stand. Due to its fluid structures, the Visegrad Group has been more than an ‘alliance’ but far less than a ‘federation’. Lately, though, there are strong signs that it is evolving into a unique development model: the Hungarian PM Orbán declared in December 2019 that it is time to build Central Europe into the most successful subregion on the continent.66

Conclusions It has been argued elsewhere that transitional democracies are likely to form and/or join international organisations in order to further their democratic aims and that international organisations support this democratisation process.67 This article has claimed, however, that after 15 years of EU 65  Visegrad Group, ‘No sptizenkandidat should head EC  – Czech PM Babis declares’, 24  June 2019, available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/news/no-spitzenkandidat (accessed 30 October 2019); see also Agata Palickova, ‘Visegrad leaders claim victory in race for EU jobs’, Euroactive, 4 July 2019, available at https://www.euractiv.com/section/euelections-2019/news/visegrad-leaders-claim-victory-in-race-for-eu-top-jobs/ (accessed 30 October 2019). See also Josef Janning, ‘Spitzenkandidaten poker’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 3 July 2019, available at https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_spitzenkandidaten_poker (accessed 30 October 2019). 66  Viktor Orbán, ‘Hungary ready to build a new central Europe’, Daily News Hungary, 14 December 2019, available at https://dailynewshungary.com/orban-hungary-ready-tobuild-new-central-europe/ (accessed 30 January 2020). 67   Paul Poast and Johannes Urpelainen, Organising Democracy: How International Organisations Assist New Democracies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018); Daniella Donno, ‘Who Is Punished? Regional Intergovernmental Organizations and the Enforcement of Democratic Norms’, International Organization 64, no. 4 (2010): 593–625.

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membership, institutional attachments have not brought the expected results of European integration or consolidated democracy. Subregionality, on the other hand, has become more important because it provides an intermediary level between the domestic sphere and the wider EU community. Intergovernmental subregional cooperation serves as a shield protecting the individual countries’ ability to drive their national interests. This presupposes an ability to compromise and adjust national goals together. The convergence of V4 countries’ policy choices is anchored in the common historical experience of the bipolar geopolitical space: they have been subjects to the same, sometimes rather dramatic changes in the international arena. In addition to these shared experiences, the contiguity of the countries equally matters because it reveals multiple political, economic and cultural interactions and interlinked development. Close connections made the consciousness of the shared experience clearer, which eventually magnified the subregional angle. Hence, symbolic-informal relations played a more important role than institutional connectedness. This article further argued that, in contrast to mainstream literature, the East Central European countries did not go through profound changes after 1989. Instead, a core understanding of the need for their alliances emerged long before, rooted in the nineteenth century and still more so in the years following the First World War. Historical legacies can likewise be detected after the 1990s, when parallel cooperation patterns emerged for trying to find the best formation to drive common goals. While the combination of countries changed in various subregional organisations over the decades, the East Central European states nevertheless often returned to the basic unit of the Visegrad alliance. This subregional entity seems to provide multiple means to maintain sovereignty—especially by applying common development models—which makes stronger institutional structures all but unnecessary.

CHAPTER 13

Subregional Groupings in Post-Communist Europe: More Than Just ‘Cooperation’? Martin Dangerfield

This chapter focuses on subregional groupings in Europe, most of which were created after, and in the context of, the end of the Cold War. Despite having been around for 25 years or more and clearly an established part of the European political landscape, subregional groupings are not conventionally deemed to be part of the ‘core’ European integration process which centres on the European Union (EU).1 Yet while undoubtedly somewhat peripheral, subregional cooperation entails European cross-­ border connectivity—incorporating, in some cases, bona fide integration processes—that occurs apart, though not necessarily disconnected from, this core European integration framework. It thus merits a place in 1  Subregional organisations are also regarded as conceptually different from the EU’s past—Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)—and potential future—Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)—alternatives, as well the EU’s ‘flanking’ arrangements for economic integration, namely, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and European Economic Area (EEA).

M. Dangerfield (*) University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_13

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discussions of those unity efforts ‘beyond Brussels’. The chapter has three main sections. The first section provides an introduction to subregionalism and an overview of the main subregional organisations in Europe. The second section discusses the various ways in which subregional groupings are connected to the wider European integration process and to the EU in particular. The third section is a case study of the Visegrad Group (VG) which has recently earned itself a somewhat high (by the standards of subregionalism) profile. The VG engages in extensive cooperation on EU affairs but also includes a range of activities that concentrate on non-EU issues as well. This dual nature of the VG ‘alliance’ is illustrated by reference to three specific aspects of cooperation: defence, the so-called Visegrad Plus and the International Visegrad Fund.

Subregional Initiatives in Europe Subregional cooperation has been most aptly defined by Renata Dwan as ‘a process of regularised, significant political and economic interaction among a group of neighbouring states […] between national governments, local authorities, private business and civil society actors across a wide range of issues’.2 The key characteristic of subregional groupings is that they are vehicles for cross-border collaboration between contiguous states across a wide range of themes and for a wide range of purposes. Their agendas are traditionally—and deliberately—in the realm of low politics and typically embrace issues such as the environment, transport, energy, culture, education, sport, economic development, border issues, science and technology. As the introduction to this volume makes clear, definitional issues make it difficult to compile a conclusive list of subregional groupings. For ease of analysis, this chapter follows the most common approach in the literature and focuses on the main intergovernmental/ state-level organisations. Due to the historical context of their emergence and development, subregional organisations tend to be concentrated in the north, centre, southeast (Balkans) and east of the European continent. They have a mix of Cold War and post-Cold War origins but are predominantly of the latter era having developed ‘along the old European dividing lines between 2  Renata Dwan, ‘Sub-regional, Regional and Global Levels: Making the Connections’, in Gunilla Herolf (ed.), Sub-regional Cooperation and Integration in Europe (Stockholm: Utrikespolitiska Institutet, 2000), 81–96, here 81.

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“East and West”’.3 They can be distinguished according to some clear territorial categories, including Northern Europe, Central Europe, Balkans/ Black Sea, Mediterranean and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union (USSR).4 Alternatively, they might be classified according to various (changing) configurations that include a mix of intra-EU, non-EU and EU plus non-EU, and even further subdivided in terms of individual countries’ inclusion or not in EU accession scenarios. It is noticeable that these subregional groupings are more important for post-communist states; the fact that certain states belong to several different organisations (Albania belongs to seven, for example) suggests that they have differentiated roles. Martin Dangerfield has identified various categories of subregional grouping based on the following classification criteria.5 First are those groupings in which the EU has direct participation, namely Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC), Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). The second classification relates to core goals and cooperation agendas of the groupings, which can range from flexible and wide-ranging portfolios of cooperation—for example the VG, Central European Initiative (CEI) and the RCC—to narrow and sometimes single issues agendas such as the Central European Free Trade Area (CEFTA). The third category concerns differences in terms of institutionalisation, whether formal or informal. Fourth is the distinction between groupings which represent more ‘natural subregions’ (for instance, CBSS, BSEC, VG) and those based on somewhat artificial or ‘manufactured’ subregions (like CEFTA, CEI). Finally, a distinction can be made between first- and second-generation groupings in post-communist Europe, the latter denoting those organisations that appeared in the mid- to late1990s and which were focused on the former Yugoslavia. Subregional groupings rarely, if ever, make the headlines, with the VG’s collective resistance to EU migrant quotas having been a

3  Anders Bjurner, ‘European Security at the End of the Twentieth Century: The Subregional Contribution’, in Andrew Cottey (ed.), Sub-regional Cooperation in the New Europe (Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan, 1999), 8–22, here 8. There are just two examples of ‘old’ subregionalism, these being the Benelux Economic Union and Nordic Council. 4  A list of the subregional groupings that currently populate Europe can be found in Martin Dangerfield, ‘From Subregionalism to Macro-Regionalism in Europe and the European Union’, in Stefan Gänzle and Kristine Kern (eds.), A ‘Macro-Regional’ Europe in the Making (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 25–45, here 29–30. 5  Dangerfield, ‘From Subregionalism to Macro-Regionalism’.

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rare  example.6 The aforementioned focus on ‘low politics’ means that subregional groupings have never been remotely comparable to larger regional organisations such as the EU, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Council of Europe (CoE) and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)—the latter of which Richard Sakwa labels ‘institutional’ and ‘pan’ Europe respectively.7 Yet notwithstanding differing roles and significance, the various groupings certainly complement and contribute to the mainstream European integration process, and their cross-border cooperation activities fill some gaps not covered by institutional or even pan-European bodies. Indeed, despite reservations about tendencies towards ‘rhetorical regionalism’, Andrew Cottey identifies four main roles for subregionalism in Europe: bridge-building between EU/NATO members and non-members; an ‘integrative function’ supporting EU and NATO aspirant members; a framework to tackle transnational policy challenges; and supporting reform (economic, political, institutional) in participating states.8 The extent to which these roles apply across the whole range of subregional organisations of course varies over time and according to specific groupings. The overall verdict, however, is that despite being overshadowed by the main European intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), subregionalism has been a constructive influence on security and Europeanisation, as well as upon intergovernmental cross-border cooperation across a broad range of common concerns and other areas. This leads to the question of whether subregional groupings can be considered as an actual element of the European integration process, which is the focus of the next part of this chapter.

Subregionalism and European Integration At first sight at least there are plenty of reasons to believe that subregionalism is simply about some forms and types of disaggregated cooperation rather than about integration per se. This has already been discussed above 6  See for instance Aneta Zachová et  al., ‘Visegrad Nations United Against Mandatory Relocation Quotas’, Euractiv, 23 July 2018, available at https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/visegrad-nations-united-against-mandatory-relocationquotas/ (accessed 10 October 2019). 7  Richard Sakwa, ‘Introduction: The Many Dimensions of Europe’, in Richard Sakwa and Anne Stevens (eds.), Contemporary Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2012), 1–26. 8  Andrew Cottey, ‘Sub-Regional Cooperation in Europe: An Assessment’, Bruges Regional Integration and Global Governance Papers, no. 3 (2009), 3–5.

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in the Introduction to this book, but it is useful here briefly to reiterate those arguments. Firstly, there is a common assertion that ‘European integration’ is signified by pooled sovereignty, a criterion that clearly rules out all subregional groupings since many do not even have common institutions. A second reason which arguably excludes subregional groupings from being seen as part of the integration process relates to their ‘marginal’ reputation. Cottey for example has written that subregional groupings are ‘often perceived as weak. They lack the economic power of the EU, the military power of NATO or the normative standard-setting role of the panEuropean OSCE.’9 Thirdly, it was common for the subregional groupings themselves (at least the post-Cold War ones) to stress that they were not designed or meant to carry out any of the functions of organisations that they either left behind (for instance the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)) or aspired to join (the EU). Finally, a number of subregional groupings contain current EU members who would not be able to participate in other formal integration processes anyway. Yet it is clear that subregional groupings do engage in integration as well, both among themselves and via interactions with the mainstream, EU-led integration process. It is important to start by mentioning that a kind of umbilical relationship with the European Union has always existed, in that developments in the mainstream European integration process have been amongst key drivers of subregionalism. For example, the EU is itself the reason for the creation of some groupings, either as a vehicle to support closer relations with the EU or, as Juhana Aunesluoma explores in his chapter in this volume, to compensate for being outside it. Also of some significance is the fact that most subregional groupings have gone through significant transformations which have proceeded in parallel with the evolution of ‘core’ European integration. The EU’s eastward enlargement in particular has had a major influence on the roles and evolution of subregional groupings. In this context, there are various ways in which subregional groupings do engage in their own integration processes or produce some effects of integration. If nothing else, one link between subregional groupings and European integration is the formers’ (often unnoticed) role as instruments for direct and indirect contributions to EU accession endeavours; that is, they have  Andrew Cottey, ‘Introduction’ in Cottey (ed.), Sub-regional Cooperation in the New Europe, 3–7, here 3. 9

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been and continue to be part of the broader pre-accession process. Both CEFTA and the Baltic Free Trade Area (BFTA) established in 1993/94 succeeded as frameworks for fostering fast-growing mutual trade and, certainly in the case of CEFTA, encouraged additional foreign direct investment from companies interested in the broader CEFTA market. Their member states were thus in a much better position later to join the EU.10 As well as the subregional trade and economic integration functions, there have also been other contributions to the EU pre-accession process. It is here that VG provides the best example of a subregional grouping with the explicit purpose of helping its member states to achieve EU (and NATO) membership and which has also, along with several other groupings (like the CEI and CBSS), funded and organised accession-related know-how and expertise transfer to EU candidates and EU eastern neighbours. Beyond this stands the important relationship between subregionalism and EU macro-regions. The EU macro-regional strategy, launched in 2010, is a policy framework which allows countries located in the same region to jointly tackle and find solutions to problems or to better use the potential they have in common (e.g. pollution, navigability, worldwide business competition, etc.). By doing so, they benefit from strengthened cooperation, with the aim of making their policies more efficient than if they had addressed the issues in isolation.11

There are at least four clear key links between subregionalism and EU macro-regions. First, some subregional groupings are clear antecedents of the existing EU macro-regions, with similar or identical territorial coverage and a parallel range of activities/agendas. Secondly, some groupings were heavily involved in consultations around the design of EU macro-­ regions. The CBSS, for example, played a key role in the development of the EU’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. Third, pre-existing subregional groupings have actively brought an EU macro-region into being, the most obvious instance being the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative (AII) and the EU Strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Region. Finally, many subregional 10  Martin Dangerfield, ‘Regional Cooperation in the Western Balkans: Stabilisation Device or Integration Policy?’, Perspectives on European Politics and Society 5, no. 2, (2004): 203–41. 11  European Commission, What is an EU Macro-Regional Strategy? (Brussels: European Union, 2017).

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groupings are involved, to varying extents, in the operation and delivery of EU macro-regions currently in action.12 Finally, European integration is associated with peacebuilding and enhancing security for its citizens. In line with this, most early studies of subregional organisations recognised their ‘positive role in fostering security and cooperation in their respective sub-regions and in the wider Europe as a whole’.13 Bailes, referring to what she called the ‘Cinderellas’ of European security, stressed the subtle nature of this process when she wrote: the largest contribution all these groups make to security is probably at the unexpressed, existential level: the mere fact that their members belong somewhere, that they understand each other, that they can talk about their worries in the corridors, that they have telephone numbers to dial in a crisis. Beyond this, all the groupings under study have made some strides (whether they recognise it or not) in soft security, by easing human and economic exchanges across frontiers and thus helping to build wider social foundations for stability and understanding.14

Though for obvious reasons subregional organisations never set out to develop any kind of formal security/defence functions, there were in some cases links between the subregional initiatives and broader foreign and security policy. The VG was a prime example of this because its original core function was to act both as a joint lobby for membership of the EU and NATO and also to collectively expedite disentanglement from Soviet-­ led security and economic integration frameworks. With this in mind, the chapter now moves to the final section, which focuses on the VG, in order to provide a closer look at subregional cooperation in action. The fact that the VG has of late been engaged in serious attempts to upgrade defence cooperation raises questions about whether accepted notions of the role and nature of subregional cooperation still hold. It therefore makes the VG a particularly interesting case study.

 Martin Dangerfield, ‘From Subregionalism to Macro-Regionalism’.  Cottey, ‘Sub-regional Cooperation in Europe’, 3. 14  Alyson Bailes, ‘Sub-regional Organisations: The Cinderellas of European Security’, NATO Review, 45, no. 2 (1997): 27–31, here 30. 12 13

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Visegrad Cooperation: Within and Beyond the EU? Visegrad cooperation is an especially valid case study of subregionalism in that it straddles various layers in the ‘multi-layered’ process of European integration, engaging in cross-border cooperation that links not only both directly and indirectly to the mainstream EU level but also cross-border cooperation in other areas/issues that are not connected to EU integration but are nevertheless relevant and important to the Visegrad states.15 Three specific aspects of the VG agenda are discussed below, each serving as illustrations of how different elements of VG cooperation demonstrate both links to the EU and independent activities. They include the role of the International Visegrad Fund (IVF), the ‘Visegrad-Plus’ (V4+) format and Visegrad defence cooperation. Before that a brief overview of the VG is necessary. The VG—or Visegrad 4 (V4) as it is often referred to—is, in its own words, a Central European ‘regional alliance’ between the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It is a vehicle for a plethora of important cooperation activities that now cover virtually the whole range of government policies together with civic-level cooperation in many areas such as culture, science, environment, economic development, education and youth exchange. Formally launched in February 1991, the original purpose of the VG was to support its member states’ ambitions to join the EU and NATO. Despite some serious doubts about whether it would have a viable future beyond 2004, actual EU (and NATO) membership instead gave the VG an ever-expanding agenda for cooperation and coordination in many aspects of EU affairs, both internal and external—a theme expanded on in Katalin Miklóssy’s chapter. Now approaching 30 years of existence, the VG is firmly embedded in the European political landscape. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the February 2011 VG summit marking its 20th anniversary, this was seen as a sign that the VG had come of age. Further meetings with Merkel, together with the then French President, François Hollande, occurred during V4-Weimar summits of November 2012 and March 2013.16 By the time of its 25th anniversary in February 2016, the VG had arguably developed a  On multi-layered integration, see Cottey, ‘Sub-Regional Cooperation in Europe’.  Martin Dangerfield, ‘V4: A New Brand for Europe? Ten Years of Post-Accession Regional Cooperation in Central Europe’, Poznan University of Economics Review 14, no. 4 (2014): 71–90. 15 16

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reputation as an increasingly vocal and ‘awkward’ intra-EU a­ lliance, one that was even gathering other like-minded EU states to its cause.17 Though VG cooperation has been an evolutionary process, it has retained some core characteristics throughout. These include its fixed membership and, by implication, lack of scope for expansion, and its modus operandi as a flexible platform for cooperation and coordination around its wide-ranging potential areas of action. Cooperation, where possible, vis-à-vis both the EU and NATO are important parts of the VG agenda, and the VG also engages with various other external partners. Though the VG operates as a distinct regional grouping within the EU, it is not some kind of Central European ‘bloc’ that automatically seeks to take joint positions across the whole range of EU business. It is, however, an important default mechanism for exchanging experiences and preferences and therefore identifying areas where coordination is viable, before then acting in concert on those specific issues. Like many subregional organisations in Europe, the VG has no supranational governance and no ambitions to travel in that direction.18 It is very light in institutional terms and the only permanent body is the Bratislava-based International Visegrad Fund (IVF). Otherwise, the VG works on the basis of coordinated sets of activities that involve a range of actors. VG cooperation is multi-level, involving government bodies including presidents, prime ministers, ministers and parliaments, along with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and academic and cultural institutions. The VG has its own rotating 12-month presidency, which runs from July to June.19 The Chair country undertakes the key coordinating role and is responsible for planning the work programme and organising the meetings that take place. Thus, rather than a permanent secretariat, the VG has a rolling one, a task which befalls to the foreign affairs ministry of the presiding member. Prime ministers hold two regular summits per year and, in addition, meet before every meeting of the EU’s European Council. Ministerial meetings 17   ‘Slovak PM Says Germany Protests Central Europe Migration Summit’, Sputnik International, 14 February 2016, available at https://sputniknews.com/ europe/201602141034723769-germany-protests-central-europe-migration-summit/ (accessed 4 March 2019). 18  Not only is unanimity a key principle of VG action there is also a clear unwritten practice of keeping sensitive or divisive matters off the VG agenda. In the early days of VG cooperation, for example, this applied to the issue of minorities while in the more recent period relations with Russia have also fallen into the ‘taboo’ category. 19  The VG Presidency rotates in this order: Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia.

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occur as and when with meetings of foreign ministers tending to be most frequent. VG presidents meet on an annual basis, while parliamentary cooperation consists of annual meetings of various groups, including Speakers of Parliaments Committee, the European Affairs Committee and committees on Public Administration and Regional Policy.20 It is necessary to also mention VG cooperation which goes on outside this official framework. VG country ambassadors to third countries, for example, are in regular contact. In addition to that, intensive interaction occurs between VG officials in Brussels, so much so that Michael Kořan has noted that ‘(m)utual communication in Brussels is becoming so dense that it is gradually becoming difficult for the national headquarters to follow its development’.21 NGOs, academic and cultural institutions’ role in VG cooperation is within the framework of IVF projects and is an important element of the operational level of both internal and external VG cooperation. The development of Visegrad cooperation has gone through four fairly distinct stages.22 The first phase, between 1990 and 1993, was heavily defined by security and defence cooperation, although predominantly at the political and broad strategic levels. As is well known, the ‘alliance’ was underwritten by the common desire of the then ‘Visegrad 3’ to join the EU and NATO. The second phase was marked by the VG’s rather abrupt disappearance from public view after the end of 1992 in the context of the division of Czechoslovakia, the development of a ‘superiority complex’ in the Czech Republic and Slovakia’s subsequent ‘eastern turn’.23 Though many narratives declared that the organisation was now a closed book, closer scrutiny revealed that while the VG identity may have gone into cold storage, cooperation remained ongoing between 1993 and 1998 and was driven by practical dimensions of EU and NATO entry. This included the economic domain, with the launch of CEFTA in March 1993 helping create a free trade zone among the V4, and a security/defence domain, 20  Further details can be found in the Calendars of VG meetings posted on the VG website, see http://www.Visegradgroup.eu/calendar (accessed 28 October 2019). 21  Michal Kořan, ‘The Visegrad Cooperation, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria in the Czech Foreign Policy’, in Michal Kořan (ed.), Czech Foreign Policy in 2007–2009: An Analysis (Prague: Institute of International Relations, 2010), 115–47, here 118. 22  See Martin Dangerfield, ‘The Visegrad Group in the Expanded European Union: From Pre-accession to Post-accession Cooperation’, East European Politics and Society 22, no. 3 (2008): 630–67. 23  For more see Ibid.

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since the process of NATO accession was gathering momentum. Phase three began with the VG’s official re-emergence in 1999. Milos Zeman, then prime minister of the Czech Republic, proposed reconvening the VG at a CEFTA prime ministers’ summit in September 1998. This renewal included two key decisions: to give VG cooperation a civic dimension via a comprehensive programme of internal cooperation to be managed by the IVF and the laying down of formal structures of VG cooperation as described above. Cooperation on EU accession was restricted to some degree because the negotiations had a high degree of country specificity, but the VG certainly operated as a valuable platform for some broader common issues. Dangerfield has written that ‘VG leaders and key ministers held many meetings in which they arrived at coordinated positions, prepared joint statements in opposition to some key aspects of EU bargaining positions in the negotiations, and so on’.24 The fourth and current phase began after EU accession. The so-called Kroměříž Declaration, signed in Prague on 12 May 2004, stated that rather than end the logic of cooperation, the completion of the VG’s original goals opened up new challenges and opportunities. The decision was subsequently taken for the V4 to continue their work together in the post-accession environment. The VG cooperation agenda did indeed expand rapidly after 2004, particularly in EU affairs. On external relations, for example, contributions to and influence upon the EU’s policy towards the eastern neighbours became a prime concern.25 After this point the VG developed into an increasingly important and prominent subregional grouping within the EU.

Internal and Externally Focused Cooperation Via the International Visegrad Fund As noted above, the first phase of the Visegrad cooperation was mainly focused on foreign and security policy and limited to the elite level. When the VG was revived in 1999, the IVF was one of several major new developments. The main idea was to complement the external dimension of cooperation with concrete activities in the internal sphere. There were also ‘identity’ aspirations. Pauli Heikkilä’s chapter in this volume has already  Ibid., 653.  See Martin Dangerfield, ‘The Contribution of the Visegrad Group to the European Union’s “Eastern” Policy: Rhetoric or Reality?’, Europe-Asia Studies 61, no. 10 (2009): 1735–55. 24 25

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traced the historical dimensions of these; several decades later the IVF was envisaged as yet another tool for fostering and strengthening VG cooperation in the civic domain and among the public. At the time of the public unveiling of the IVF in August 2000, Radio Prague reported that: Visegrad has never really captured the public imagination and that’s one of the reasons why the new fund [i.e. the IVF] has been set up [for] it aims to support regional cooperation at a grass-roots level, and give real meaning to the rather abstract idea of a regional identity.26

The formal approval to establish the IVF in June 2000 bound the VG member countries into a legal commitment to support these sorts of internal cooperation activities via obligatory financial contributions.27 The practical need for managerial and administrative capacity also made the IVF unique in that it is the only genuine VG permanent institution with its own premises, staff and resources. The IVF supports various dimensions of intra-VG cross-border connectivity through two main types of grant-based instruments: projects and mobilities. Visegrad Grants are available for projects that conform with the different ‘focus areas’ that are eligible for funding and presently include, among a total of seven, ‘Culture and Common Identity’ and ‘Innovation, R&D, Entrepreneurship’.28 The rules state that to qualify for support, any project must involve partners from at least three of the four VG states or, for projects taking place within a 40 km radius from an internal VG border, at least two organisations from two neighbouring V4 countries. Mobility grants, meanwhile, have two strands: Visegrad Scholarships and Artist Residencies. The Visegrad Scholarships primarily cover postgraduate- or postdoctoral-level study placements at another VG higher education establishment or placements with a smaller number of scholarships  Dangerfield, ‘The Visegrad Group in the Expanded European Union’, 646.  The effectiveness and relevance of the IVF seem to have been recognised at the top levels if the willingness to expand the finances of it is anything to go by. In 2005 the IVF was given a budget of €3million, which was already three times higher than the initial amount granted for its first year of operation. The V4 make equal contributions to the IVF budget, which is currently €8million to which the IVF also ‘subcontracts’ contributions from Canada, Germany, Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. 28  The full list of specific objectives of Visegrad Grants is as follows: ‘Culture and Common Identity’; ‘Education and Capacity Building’: ‘Innovation, R&D, Entrepreneurship’; Democratic Values and the Media; Public Policy and Institutional Partnership; Regional Development, Environment and Tourism; Social Development. 26 27

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which enable periods of research/study at the Open Society Archives in Budapest. The Artist Residencies, for their part, enable individual artists to spend periods of three months working in another VG state.29According to the IVF’s own reports, the numerous grants issued—which covered specific mobilities and a range of projects of various scales—have benefitted ‘many dozens of thousands of people involved in cross-border contact who build institutional partnerships, start new civil initiatives or share their ideas with colleagues abroad, people who conduct research, publish or perform’.30 Though the IVF has succeeded in establishing a strong project-based arena of VG cooperation with huge take-up by civil society organisations, progress vis-à-vis the wider public has (perhaps inevitably) been much slower. Writing some ten years after the launch of the IVF, Strážay remarked that ‘spreading the Visegrad idea among the populations of the V4 countries remains another big challenge’.31 The final strand of intra-VG cooperation to be mentioned are the Strategic Grants, which ‘support projects addressing annual strategic priorities of the Visegrad Group’.32 These grants fund substantial policy research projects that must include significant participation of partners from all four VG members and address strategic priorities decided on an annual basis. The current priorities are ‘Brexit—implications for the V4’,‘Smart solutions for a smart region’ and ‘Promotion of the V4’. Since 2004, the IVF has also been viewed as a tool for externally oriented cooperation. It is in this respect that links between the role of the IVF and EU integration have developed. In line with the overall steps to adapt the VG to the EU post-accession era, the 2003/04 Czech VG presidency instigated discussions and proposals to adapt and upgrade the IVF to the new conditions of EU membership. The goal was to utilise the IVF as a tool for cross-border cooperation between the V4 and the two regions which were to be the niche territory of the V4 in EU foreign policy—the 29  The Artist in Residence programmes cover Visual and Sound Arts, Performing Arts and Literature. There are also Residencies in New York. 30  International Visegrad Fund, Visegrad Fund = 15 (Bratislava: International Visegrad Fund, 2015), available at https://www.Visegradfund.org/ivf_Visegrad-fund15/ (accessed 7 March 2019). 31  Tomáš Strážay, ‘Visegrad - Arrival, Survival, Revival’, in Betislav Danák et al. (eds.), Two Decades of Visegrad Cooperation—Selected V4 Bibliography (Bratislava: International Visegrad Fund, 2011), 14–38, here 32. 32   International Visegrad Fund, Strategic Grants (Bratislava: International Visegrad Fund, 2019).

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Western Balkans and Eastern European neighbours—with the specific goal of supporting these countries’ progress in their EU integration endeavours. Existing instruments, including Visegrad Grants and Visegrad Scholarships, were thus extended to partners from these countries. New instruments were also developed, including the ‘Visegrad+ Programme’ that originally focused on ‘supporting longer-term initiatives that facilitate the V4 region’s transformation and democratization know-how to the Western Balkans’.33 In 2012, the VG even introduced its own Eastern Partnership (the V4EaP) focusing on the same six countries—namely, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine—as the EU’s more widely known programme of the same name (EaP). This comprised both ‘Flagship Projects’ that provided ‘access to V4 know-how with the processes of democratic transformation and integration and regional cooperation’ and ‘Extended Standard Grants’ designed to ‘support reform processes, political association and economic integration with the EU, building of institutional capacities, and development of civil society’.34 The V4EaP and programmes for the Western Balkans are now under the umbrella of the Visegrad+ Grant strand. Visegrad+ grants must involve at least three partners from three different VG countries and a minimum of one partner from either the Eastern Partnership pool or West Balkans. The seven objectives or ‘focus areas’ that govern eligibility for Visegrad Grants also apply to Visegrad+ grants, though specific themes apply for each region. For example, in the ‘Public Policy and Institutional’ theme, there are four common objectives and specific objectives for each region. In the case of the EaP countries, these relate to the rule of law and good governance and building the necessary central and local administration system with the involvement of civil society; in the case of the West Balkan countries they centre instead on migration, border control and the fight against corruption and organised crime. In the cases of both the EaP and West Balkans, the V4 programmes are meant primarily to provide support for those countries attempting to further develop their relations with the EU. As a result, their focus echoes EU policies in those regions.

 International Visegrad Fund, Visegrad Fund = 15, 25.  Ibid., 25.

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Visegrad Plus The so-called Visegrad Plus (V4+) format is the VG’s formal instrument for cooperation with third-party countries both in the domain of EU affairs and in broader networks of inter-state cooperation throughout Europe and beyond. Since the VG reconvened in 1999, the V4+ format has been used on an expanding basis, having started with immediate neighbours in central Europe (especially Austria and Slovenia) and subsequently opening up to other EU members, non-EU member states such as the West Balkans and EaP countries and eventually at a global level. The difference between the original and present-day reach of the V4+ format is illustrated perfectly by the very first and very latest VG Presidency Reports. The 1999/2000 Czech Presidency report makes just one reference to the V4+ format, concerning a meeting between the V4 and the Austrian Minister of the Interior.35 By contrast, the latest (Hungarian) VG Presidency Report states that 22 ‘high-level’ (i.e. prime ministerial or ministerial) meetings took place between July 2017 and June 2018.36 The high-level meetings of 2017–18, the report continued, ‘encompassed a wide range of partners including, for example, Austria, the UK, Egypt, Japan and Australia at the single country level and also with other regional groupings/configurations including the Benelux countries, Nordic Council, the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership states and the Nordic-­ Baltic Eight (NB8)’.37 The scope and frequency of the V4+ format expanded significantly after 2004 when EU accession led to a massive expansion in the cooperation agenda, both for internal EU policies and external ones (e.g. vis-à-vis the Eastern Neighbourhood). It is clear from the way in which the V4+ mechanism has evolved that its function is largely pragmatic. But there is a clear political purpose, in that the V4+ format rests upon the basic assumption that a group of countries can achieve more together than on an individual basis. As Tulmets wrote, the V4+ is 35  Visegrad Group, ‘Report of the Czech Presidency of the Visegrad Group, 1999–2000’ (2000), available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/documents/annual-reports/1999-2000czech-110412 (accessed 10 December 2018). 36  Visegrad Group, ‘Review of major events under the Hungarian Presidency of the Visegrad Group, July-September 2017’, Visegrad Bulletin 7, no. 4 (2017), available at http://www.visegradgroup.eu/visegrad-bulletin-7-4 (accessed 24 May 2018). 37  Ibid. The NB8 includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

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increasingly used to associate “like-minded countries”—the Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria, but also the country holding (or about to hold) the EU presidency—to declarations and statements. This is a way to make sure that the V4’s political message will be heard by other member states.38

And the V4+ also follows the key VG tenet that cooperation and coordination are flexible (where clear shared interests and positions exist) rather than automatic. As well as for specific issues, V4+ engagement can start off with an exploration of possible agendas and grow into a way of opening channels of dialogue for future joint activities. This is most obviously the case for relations with other subregional groupings, such as the Benelux Union and Nordic Council.39 As far as specific examples of EU-related cooperation are concerned, the various Annual VG Presidency Reports document the increasing scope and value of the V4+ over the years. The recent migrant crisis is an obvious and high-profile recent illustration of the V4+ at work. The V4 prime ministers’ Joint Statement on Migration stated that the Visegrad Group countries exchanged their views on the migration challenges Europe and the Balkans region in particular are facing. They expressed their full support for measures adopted at the European Union level with the aim of more effective protection of external borders, including reinforced cooperation with third countries while repeating their negative stance on automatic permanent relocation mechanism.40

V4+ activity has covered a range of issues, including not only higher profile ones such as EU asylum/immigration policy but also equally important areas of common interest with specific partners. For example, in March 2017 VG ministers responsible for cohesion policy met with their counterparts from Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia. They adopted 38  Elsa Tulmets, ‘Is Weimar Plus a copy of the Visegrad Plus?’, V4 Revue, 16 April 2013, available at http://Visegradrevue.eu/is-weimar-plus-a-copy-of-the-Visegrad-plus/ (accessed 10 December 2018). 39  Close VG cooperation in the process of joining the Schengen Area, for example, was a key area of VG post-accession cooperation and a mainstay of the intense cooperation between the VG and the Benelux Group between 2004 and 2007. It also established the practice of regular meetings between the VG and Benelux Prime Ministers before European Council summits. 40  Visegrad Group, ‘Joint Statement on Migration’, 15 February 2016, available at http:// www.Visegradgroup.eu/calendar/2016/joint-statement-on (accessed 19 February 2016).

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‘the V4+4 Joint Paper on Cohesion Policy [and] exchanged views on the shape and structure of the cohesion policy post-2020’.41 Though tending to be more concentrated within Europe, the V4+ format is a further prime example of how Visegrad cooperation straddles both EU-related cooperation on the one hand and on the other joint activities to serve other policies, priorities and areas of common interest. The V4+ format offers the VG states an important channel to develop the profile of the region and the individual V4 states. From the perspective of countries outside Europe, it is reasonable to assume that engagement at the level of Visegrad has more gravitas and creates openings that would be less easy for the individual VG states to achieve—and to do so at a shared cost. Important partnerships have been established with the United States, countries in the Middle East (notably Israel, Egypt and Jordan) and in Asia (such as Japan and South Korea). Since the Czech VG Presidency of 2015/16, the V4+ format strategy has been to deepen rather than broaden the agenda and concentrate on developing these existing relationships, indicating that the VG states are looking for and expect concrete benefits from them. These include trade and economic benefits, promotion of tourism, cultural cooperation and, of course, political cooperation. The latter not only enhances the VG’s profile as a group seeking to influence its own region and international affairs in general but also one intent on an agenda-setting role, targeting issues of crucial importance to the VG states. The joint statement that followed the V4+ Egypt meeting in Budapest on 4 July 2017, for example, says that the ‘V4 and the Arab Republic of Egypt agreed that tackling the current migration crisis requires first and foremost addressing its root causes’. It continues: ‘While appreciating the efforts of the Government of Egypt to curb illegal migration, the leaders shared the view that close cooperation with the countries of origin and transit should be reinforced’.42 The concluding comments about the V4+ format relate to the question of the VG’ own membership, something which has fleetingly appeared on the VG agenda but has never really gained traction. As Strážay has noted, despite 41  Visegrad Group, ‘Review of the most important V4 events between 1 March–11 May’, Visegrad Bulletin 5, no. 2 (2017), available at http://www.Visegradgroup.eu/Visegradbulletin-5-2 (accessed 10 December 2018). 42  Visegrad Group, ‘Joint Statement of Prime Ministers of the Visegrad Group and President of the Arab Republic of Egypt’, 4 July 2017, available at http://www. Visegradgroup.eu/documents/official-statements (accessed 10 December 2018).

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a number of suggestions to enlarge the Visegrad Four in the course of the last twenty years—with Slovenia and Austria as the most frequently mentioned candidates—there is a consensus among V4 country representatives not to enlarge the group further [and that it] is more appropriate to explore new possibilities of employing this [the V4+] than to reopen the enlargement issue.43

Even before V4+ had developed as the ideal alternative, there was significant logic against admitting new members. An important argument was that more states would render cooperation less effective by increasing the number of different viewpoints and national interests and making consensus even more difficult to achieve. VG states were also members of the CEI, seen as a much more nebulous subregional cooperation vehicle and a warning of how an enlarged VG might result in a diluted and less effective cooperation process. In fact, the tendency within the VG was rather to see their alliance as the Central European equivalent of the Benelux and Nordic Council, both of which had a clear regional identity and which ruled out any expansion. To this end, Andras Rácz refers to the significance of dense established networks that exist between the V4 at many levels and argues that the: biggest advantage we have in Visegrad is the levels of administration. I often call it Visegrad socialisation. It has simply become part of the socialisation of the political culture of our foreign policy elites to consult each other. And we’ve been doing this for twenty years. And anyone who joins simply wouldn’t have this.44

This of course draws attention to the key importance of informal interactions in VG cooperation and demonstrates clearly why it would be very difficult for any other country to join the VG.

 Strážay, ‘Visegrad - Arrival, Survival, Revival’, 5.  Andras Rácz, ‘Visegrad Differences Will Always Exist’, Visegrad Insight, 26 September 2014, 4, available at https://Visegradinsight.eu/visegard-differences-will-alwaysexist26092014/ (accessed 10 December 2018). 43 44

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Visegrad Defence Cooperation Defence is yet another intriguing area of VG cooperation not only because it shows perfectly how the VG straddles the EU-related and independent dimensions of subregional cooperation but also because it raises the question of whether the VG is entering the realm of ‘high politics’, which would of course undermine some longstanding assumptions about the role and limitations of subregionalism. Though always officially part of the VG agenda, defence cooperation activities were largely restricted to the rhetorical level until 2010. Since then, defence cooperation has become far more prominent a part of the V4 agenda. Underneath the most high-­ profile ‘flagship’ achievement—the V4 European Union Battlegroup (V4EUBG)—is indeed the arguably more significant long-term commitment to meaningful and enduring defence cooperation. The Long Term Vision of the Visegrad Countries on Deepening their Defence Cooperation and the Framework for Enhanced Visegrad Defence Planning Cooperation are regarded as genuine milestones ‘which created—for the first time in V4 history—both a strategic concept of the goals, scope and level of ambition in defence cooperation, as well as a mechanism for coordination of defence planning, including acquisition issues’.45 These agreements confirmed that specific areas would form the main focus of the VG defence cooperation efforts, as illustrated by the programme of the recent Hungarian VG presidency which, in accordance with the Action Plan of the Visegrad Group Defence Cooperation (July 2016–June 2018), delineated five ongoing areas of cooperation: defence policy cooperation; operational cooperation; joint capability development; defence industry cooperation; and joint training and education of defence forces. The Framework for Enhanced Visegrad Defence Planning Cooperation meanwhile stated that ‘success of the V4 defence planning cooperation requires certain structures to be put in place in order to facilitate the identification and implementation of capability development areas and projects’.46 It subsequently created a three-tier structure. At the top level, this comprises the Committee of State Secretaries/Defence Policy Directors responsible for receiving and making political decisions on proposals. Such 45  Karolina Gawron-Tabor, ‘“New Quality” of Defence Cooperation Within the Visegrad Group in 2010–2014’, Obrana a strategie 15, no. 1 (2015): 63–78. 46  Visegrad Group, ‘Framework for an Enhanced Visegrad Group Defence Planning Cooperation’, 14 March 2014, available via http://www.visegradgroup.eu/about/cooperation/defence (accessed 26 October 2016).

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proposals come from a second level—the V4 Planning Group (V4PG)— composed of defence policy experts and defence planning chiefs tasked with selecting ‘the most promising areas of cooperation’. The V4PG is in turn supported by a third level—the so-called Working Teams that convene around project proposals and develop the details and specifications for them. The Framework gives defence cooperation a longer-term character and enables crucial continuity between VG presidencies. Though significant progress remains slow and difficult some important tangible results have been evident. These have included, for example, the formation of the V4EUBG. The Framework has likewise led to a renewed focus on practical defence cooperation centred around, first, capability development, procurement and defence industry; second, the establishment of multinational units and running cross-border activities; and third, education, training and exercises.47 The V4EUBG is the clearest sign that VG defence cooperation is umbilically linked to the EU. First mooted in 2007, with the agreement to proceed eventually signed in 2011, the V4EUBG was on standby for rapid deployment during the first of 2016 and was scheduled to be so again in 2019. Led by Poland during the 2016 standby phase, the V4EUBG consisted of 1800 soldiers from Poland, 728 from the Czech Republic, 560 from Slovakia and 640 from Hungary.48 The V4 states have used the V4EUBG, and defence cooperation more broadly, as an opportunity to raise their profile in the EU security and defence arena. Paulech and Urbanovská, for example, noted that the V4EUBG has emerged as a way to ‘demonstrate these countries’ commitment’ to the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and has worked to ‘help the EU fill in the half-empty list of useable battlegroups, which would increase the credibility of these countries within the entire EU’.49 VG defence cooperation, in its concept and timing, is also very much connected to the EU 47  See Martin Dangerfield, ‘Defence Policies of Small States in Central Europe: The Role of Visegrad Cooperation’, SSANSE Policy Brief, no. 13 (June 2018); Gawron-Tabor, ‘“New Quality” of Defence Cooperation’; Visegrad Group, ‘Visegrad Group Defence Cooperation’ (2015), available at http://www.Visegradgroup.eu/about/cooperation/defence (accessed 26 October 2016). 48  The Slovak Spectator, ‘V4 Battlegroup is on standby’, 5 January 2016, available at http://spectator.sme.sk/c/20070398/v4-battlegroup-is-on-standby.html (accessed 26 October 2016). 49  Michal Paulech and Jana Urbanovskál, ‘Visegrad Four EU Battlegroup: Meaning and Progress’ Obrana a strategie 14, no. 2 (2014): 49–60.

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concept of ‘pooling and sharing’, in which member states-led initiatives and projects to increase collaboration on military capabilities are promoted and supported by the European Defence Agency (EDA). The recently formed Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) is another example of how broader EU initiatives are shaping the form and content of VG defence cooperation. When the V4 Defence Policy Directors (DPD) met in Budapest in July 2017, they decided to organise a V4PG meeting of defence experts in order to examine the possibilities of cooperating in the framework of PESCO.50 Given the backdrop of NATO and EU membership, significant external influences on the VG’s defence cooperation agenda are inevitable. Other factors have, however, also been relevant. The VG’s own account of the ‘surge’ in attention given to defence cooperation after 2010 stresses that it also came about because of serious defence funding pressures that arose after the financial crisis of 2008/09. For the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia—countries where defence spending is well below the NATO benchmark of 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP)—this was clearly a propitious time to take advantage of any opportunities to economise in terms of their defence activities and share costs on major military assets.51 Though not ensnared in the same sort of budgetary constraints, Poland doubtlessly shared such a goal. Perhaps more crucially, though, Warsaw apparently saw defence cooperation as a way to serve a broader motivation that has always driven its interest in Visegrad cooperation. As Batora et al. have written, Poland ‘has a geopolitical goal in mind: it seeks to play a prominent role in the region, enjoying the respect of its neighbours and prestige among Europe’s largest countries’.52 Finally when discussing defence, as with any area of VG policy coordination, it is vital to stress the importance of what can be seen as the longstanding ‘culture of cooperation’ which reflects the VG’s status as an ingrained element of the V4 countries’ political processes and a key platform for permanent dialogue and varying degrees of cooperation and coordination. Defence cooperation, like other policy realms, is a well-established area of 50  Visegrad Group, ‘Review of major events under the Hungarian Presidency July– September 2017’. 51  Indeed, the crucial factor of defence funding crisis is revealed by the very fact that the highly influential report on VG defence cooperation commonly referred to as ‘DAV4’ (see below) is an abbreviation of the full title of the project which is ‘Defence Austerity: A New Paradigm for Defence and Security Cooperation in the Visegrad Region’. 52  Jozef Bátora et al., DAV4 Full Report (Bratislava: CEPI, 2012).

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regularised dialogue with a long history going back to the formative period of the VG.  Defence ministers have in fact met regularly, at least once per year, since the VG was reconvened in 1999. Other components of the VG’s defence establishments have been part of this process too.

Conclusions All told, therefore, subregional organisations merit a place in any discussion of the different forms of European unity and cooperation that have existed, or continue to exist, outside the framework of the EU. Integration, then, can thus obviously be taken to mean both formal and informal dimensions of cross-border connectivity that occur apart from, though not necessarily disconnected from, ‘core’ cooperation frameworks. With one or two exceptions, there are no official links between EU bodies and subregional groupings. It would be perfectly reasonable therefore to regard subregional groups as formally detached from so-called official or institutional Europe. Their cross-border activities nevertheless complement and contribute to EU integration; subregional units, as this chapter has shown, can in fact help fill some gaps not covered by the EU. Furthermore, the activities of certain subregional groupings go beyond mere cooperation and amount to a direct role in the EU integration process. The member states of certain groups, as the VG example shows, act in concert within the EU—although this is essentially on a flexible basis according to when their interests coincide, as has been the case with the EU migration crisis for example. Subregionalism, then, is perhaps most accurately portrayed as a stratum of what Cottey has termed a ‘multi-­ layered’ European integration process which consists of core bodies sitting alongside a range of other organisations that play lesser, and often narrower, roles in the dense panoply of cross-border connectivity in Europe— but important roles nonetheless.53

 Cottey, ‘Sub-Regional Cooperation in Europe’.

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PART IV

European Integration: Past and Future, East and West, Brussels and Beyond

CHAPTER 14

Conclusions Anne Deighton

As this rich collection of chapters confirms, historical studies of the European Economic Community (EEC), and its later incarnations the European Communities (EC) and now European Union (EU), have, thankfully, long broken out of a narrow, often teleological perspective. The volume is very much a product of its time, as is the case with so much writing on Institution Europe. It is only since the run-up to the end of the Cold War and the opening up of the intellectual debate on European integration, as well as the wider availability of new archival resources to a new generation of scholars, that the impetus for such a novel book becomes possible. We should remind ourselves of how the field of European studies (it was hardly plausible to call it a discipline) appeared after the Second World War, when institution-building went through its most frenetic and creative phases. During the early Cold War years, the idea of the EEC was so politically sensitive that scholars, who were then mainly in the rather new field of American-dominated political science, were rarely able to stand back and see the incremental developments within the context of changing national politics and the new, emerging international system, beyond

A. Deighton (*) University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6_14

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a desire to avoid once and for all the tragedy of war that the European continent had experienced. The promise of cooperation, economic integration, prosperity and peace prevailed. Indeed so-called Haasian neo-­ functionalism, with its implications of a slow but steady route to a new kind of federalism in Western Europe, very quickly became the favoured explanatory model in the US, and then on the European continent itself.1 The technical ‘spin’ inherent in neo-functionalism allowed scholars to concentrate on what was called ‘low politics’—that is, the politics of economics—and thus to avoid the big questions about how and when more substantial change would happen. The creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and then EEC, with their promises of the possible emergence of some kind of future federalism became the dominant paradigm, best summed up by the hope that the ECSC would bind France and West Germany so closely that future war would be completely impossible. However, the deliberate ambiguity of strategy meant that scholars were often diverted by the question of whether integration was indeed political (quasi-federal), but driven by economic methods; or was economic (recovery and managed competition) with a political gloss of working together to prevent future military conflicts. There were institutional failures and false starts during the 1950s, including the failure of European Defence Community (EDC) and its outcrop, the European Political Community (EDC), as well as unfulfilled plans for sectoral economic integration. So, ambiguity was prevalent in policy  formation as well as in research and scholarship, and this serves as a partial backdrop to the range of policy initiatives described in this book. Within this framework, Cold War international security, and particularly the creation and development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the 1950s and 1960s, was largely insulated from the institutional innovations of the EEC. Likewise, Eastern Europe, freshly created by the Soviet Union, was largely considered as terra incognita, for institutional integration appeared to further cement the entirely artificial, but for some in the West, convenient divide between Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in Germany. The big beast in the room, 1  Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe. Political, Social and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2004 [1958]).

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ultimately protected by NATO, was undoubtedly the EEC (neutral states did not join until after the end of the Cold War). Politicians and scholars alike saw that supranational integration, in which states voluntarily ‘gave up’ or ‘surrendered’ parts of their national sovereignty for greater collective gain, was the most innovative and dominant feature of Institution Europe. Then during the 1980s, and initially driven by the work of Alan Milward, it became obvious that other scholars had now to consider the extent to which supranational integration would and could actually demolish the nation  state or, counter-intuitively, whether integration had re-animated and so allowed the economic ‘rescue’ of the post-war state.2 The end of the Cold War, and the intricate diplomacy across the East-­ West divide that preceded it liberated scholars from the Cold War mentality, which quickly became seen as ‘history’, not lived reality. East Germany was folded into a new united Germany; the Soviet Empire in East Central Europe collapsed and the newly emerging states demanded a ‘return’ to an imagined institution-driven Europe. Then the Soviet Union itself collapsed, which totally transformed the strategic landscape while also raising existential questions about the new states and about Russia itself, relating to where ‘Europe’ ended and the purpose and reach of the EC/EU. These changing circumstances now allow scholars and researchers from across Europe and beyond to rethink the past, to wonder why the academic focus had been so powerfully on the EC/EU, and about those other European institutions that coexist with the EU or which have failed to survive in an EU-dominated Institution  Europe. The well-known European institutional alphabet soup could now be properly tasted, both to better understand what was going on in the Cold War period, but also perhaps to learn more lessons about institutions themselves and how they worked, as well as how the Soviet Union had viewed and reacted to integration in the West. New models and theories were complemented by new archival sources, creating a rich research environment with a new working language borrowed from political science, economics, sociology and history—transnationalism, networks, civil society, cross-border interactions, regional and subregional perspectives, religious and political parties’ roles in pushing for change, to name but a few.3  Alan S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State (London: Routledge, 1992).  See, for example, Anne Deighton and Alan S. Milward (eds.), Widening, Deepening and Acceleration: The European Economic Community, 1957–1963 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2 3

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How institutions related to each other was also open to interrogation— and exploration of the place of NATO began, for the big question was the extent to which other institutions (including the EU of course) had been essentially ‘nested’ under NATO’s strategic protection despite protestations to the contrary.4 At the same time, scholars whose primary interest was not in European institutions started to re-examine the history of the 1940s and 1950s and to ask who really were the key players; how the US fitted into European political decision-making; the role of neutrals and small states; how coming to terms with the legacies of wars, empires and past memories ‘fitted’ with the realities of institution-building of the first post-war decades.5 This edited volume builds upon the latest wave of thinking and research on these issues. The work of Kiran Patel is particularly important. Patel urges historians of integration to retreat from a fetish about the EC/EU, but to ‘provincialise’, as he puts it, their work in favour of other European institutions in their new research efforts and to see how other institutions energised, complemented or rivalled the efforts of the EEC/EC.6 The chapters in this book are a showcase of such non-EU institutional practice, looking at formal intergovernmental projects, regional and subregional projects, projects that were linked to the newlyformed United Nations Organisation, networks with policy output aims and networks of beliefs (both socialist and conservative). They also remind the reader that 1945 was not ground zero and that interwar projects, currently largely 1999); Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen (eds.), The History of the European Union: Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950–72 (London: Routledge, 2009). 4  See, for example, Stephanie C.  Hofmann, ‘Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security: The Case of NATO and ESDP’, Perspectives on Politics 7, no. 1 (2009): 45–52; Jordan M.  Becker, ‘Accidental Rivals? EU Fiscal rules, NATO, and Transatlantic Burden-Sharing’, Journal of Peace Research 56, no. 5 (2019): 697–713. 5  Anne Deighton, Building Postwar Europe: National Decision-Makers and European Institutions 1948–63 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995); René Girault (ed.), Identité et conscience européennes au XXe siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1994); Robert Frank (ed.), Les identités européennes au XXe siècle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004); Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, Wilfried Loth and Raymond Poidevin (eds.), Institutions européennes et identités européennes (Brussels: Emile Bruylant, 1998). 6  See, recently, Kiran Klaus Patel and Wolfram Kaiser, ‘Continuity and Change in European Cooperation during the Twentieth Century’, Contemporary European History 27, no.  2 (2018): 165–82; Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘Provincialising European union: Co-operation and Integration in Europe in a Historical Perspective’, Contemporary European History 22, no. 4 (2013): 649–73.

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colonised by those with specialisms in the League of Nations, merit study. The landscape of Institution Europe is enhanced and enriched by this longer perspective and raises issues about causation and the drive for collective action decades before the Treaty of Rome was signed, as well as revealing more about contemporary politics in Europe, for example through the place of the European Economic Area (EEA) discussed in this volume by Juhana Aunesluoma. The difficulties of writing institutional histories are well known.7 The archives of international organisations (IOs) can be notoriously hard to access, especially if the institution has been closed down. Institutional records also tend to be bland, as minutes need to reflect international compromises and formal agreements, rather than the cut and thrust of debate and argument. So, it is not always easy to read between the lines and see the rationale for decisions taken. This is problematic for the historian, who may have to use national, private and other archives alongside formal institutional records; it is arguably harder for those writing on contemporary organisations. The value of using a variety of sources is revealed very clearly in this book, and the range of countries’ archival collections, as well as private and other archives, is rich. Of course, access is contingent upon the awareness and cooperation of states and others to the premise that the past matters in so many ways. The volume editors have drawn a distinction between pan-European, regional institutions and subregional activities, as well as institutions in an East-West and post-Cold War context. This helps the reader to categorise and sort out the huge variety of institutions examined and cleverly reinforces the need to look, not only at the state or the EC/EU level, but ‘above’ as well as ‘below’ the normal perspectives. The chapters in Part I of the book deal with integration efforts on the pan-European or macro-level and are concerned with phenomena such as East-West ‘bridge-building’, Europeanisation and issues like all-European norms, values and identity. The accent on bridge-building also brings to the fore the role of individuals and groups such as party coalitions or directors of IOs. The number of IOs touched upon by the authors gives credence to the idea that integration and cooperation were about more than 7  A problem explored by Linda Risso, Propaganda and Intelligence in the Cold War: The NATO Information Service (London: Routledge, 2014), 1–5. For a definition and background to international organisations more generally, Clive Archer, International Organizations (London and New York: Routledge, 2003).

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the EU. Indeed, the likes of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE, formerly the CSCE), the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) have been discussed as examples of IOs with members drawn from both Cold War blocs, while institutions such as the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) or the European Parliament tend to centre on West Europe. Chapters in Part II of the book largely focus on regional IOs and deal with economic and political integration within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Socialist International and the EEA. Many of these chapters work on the meso-level of European integration, often taking into account the process and progress of the major actor on the regional level of European integration, namely the EEC/EC/EU. They do so either as a reference point for federalist ideas—that is, critically evaluating its value as ‘the gold standard’—or in terms of their ‘attractiveness’ for non-members. The chapters in Part III address the subregional or micro-level of European integration. They share a focus on the eastern and southern parts of the continent. This is not accidental. As Martin Dangerfield points out in his chapter, institutions of subregional integration are a phenomenon in large part precisely because of ‘the historical context of their emergence and development’. The subregions addressed in the chapters are geographically less clearly defined, covering parts of Central Europe during the Cold War era and, in the post-Cold War period, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Among them is a rather unique and quite active IO formed by the core-CEE countries, the Visegrad Group. While these subregional integration efforts clearly had and have a rationale independent of the so-called core European integration process of the EU, the chapters in this section most clearly acknowledge the interlinks with the activities and processes of Brussels-led integration. From all this we can see new types of research questions emerging. For example, this distinction has allowed some of the contributors to focus upon individuals as policy entrepreneurs, regional or party leaders or technocrats with specific ambitions. The role of individuals is a recurring theme, not least as, in many areas, it is a relatively small group of actors (civil servants) who are found to have moved between institutions—the

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human ‘stage army’ of international institution-building, as the British civil servant par excellence Eric Roll once called them.8 This theme relates to a larger, and largely unresearched, question. This is the extent to which we can discern either a hierarchy of institutions, or, less ambitiously, how institutions related, cooperated or competed with each other in practice. Such interrogations will lead subsequent researchers to begin to answer the questions about why it was that some institutions failed and some were more successful, and whether the answers to such questions lie within the frameworks themselves (as the proponents of supranational integration with legally binding tools at their disposal would have us believe), or whether the external environment is perhaps more important. On the external environment of institution-building, this volume shows that the study of smaller institutions cannot escape from consideration even if the larger national beasts in the zoo may dominate. Lack of space has obliged the editors to omit consideration of those big beasts such as NATO, WEU, the Council of Europe and the Warsaw Pact. The same is true for the role of the larger states in the promotion or de-stabilising of institutions. We do know a considerable amount about the role of the US in Cold War Western Europe, directly, or through financial mechanisms and the CIA, but the role of the Soviet Union as a driver of institutional innovation as well as an observer of West European efforts, and then the role of Russia after 1991 is still seriously under-investigated, although this volume makes a tantalising start. What is now clear is that international institution-building could never be a purely functional, technical process—economics and security projects are deeply political, and initiatives by small groups or countries are part of this. So, David Mitrany’s hopes and analyses which focused on functionalism and not politics only take us so far.9 The resilience of the larger states over time, and their capacity to shape institutions in their own interests, is extraordinary. The impact of state actions between 1989 and 1991 upon international institutions beyond the EC/EU is an obvious area in which further research could be very fruitful and could raise questions about  Eric Roll, Crowded Hours (London: Faber and Faber, 1985), 54.  David Mitrany, ‘The Prospect of Integration: Federal or Functional’, Journal of Common Market Studies 4, no. 2 (1965): 119–49. For a critique, Robert McLaren, ‘Mitranian Functionalism: Possible or Impossible?’, Review of International Studies 11, no. 2 (1985): 139–52. 8 9

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how institutions both shape and are shaped by the external, strategic landscape. That the institutionalisation of Europe is a messy phenomenon rather than a uniform process emerges very strongly from this volume. Researchers can now develop this innovative thread of thinking about institutions in many disparate ways, based in part upon the editors’ typology, but also upon the insights of social scientists and a deep and timely curiosity about the range and scope of the institutional phenomenon that has characterised both West and East Europe in the twentieth century and beyond.

Index1

A Aarhus Convention, of the OSCE, 96, 110, 112, 114 Acquis communautaire, 29, 159, 162 Adler, Friedrich, 121, 123, 124 Adriatic-Ionian Initiative (AII), 296 Afghanistan, 76, 77 Africa, 32 Agenda 2000, 283 Aigner, Gerhardt, 52 Albania, 174, 222, 281, 293 Albarda, J.W., 124 All-European, 7, 14, 18, 27, 33, 36, 37, 47, 282, 319 See also Pan-European Andersen, Alsing, 122, 123 Anschluss, 275 Antall, József, 278 Anti-communism, 237, 245 Archiv des Liberalismus in Gummersbach, 223

Ariane launcher, 266 Armenia, 190, 191, 214, 304 Arndt, Rudi, 71, 79, 81–85, 81n31, 88 Asia, 30, 197, 307 Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), 227 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 193 Atlantic Charter, 228 Attlee, Clement, 133, 136, 138 Auerbach, Hellmuth, 37 Auriol, Vincent, 137 Australia, 250, 251, 305 Austria, 1, 64, 122, 130, 142, 147, 150, 154, 154n33, 157, 159, 161, 162, 165, 166, 272, 273, 280, 281, 285, 288, 289, 305, 308 Austro-Hungarian Dual monarchy, 273

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 M. Broad, S. Kansikas (eds.), European Integration Beyond Brussels, Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45445-6

323

324 

INDEX

Autarky, 35, 46 Authoritarian, 194 Aviation industry, 214, 215, 218 Azerbaijan, 304 B ‘Back to Europe,’ 13, 243, 269 Bailes, Alyson, 297 Balassa, Bela, 170, 184 Ball, George, 259 Baltic Assembly, 3 Baltic Free Trade Area (BFTA), 296 Baltic Sea, 225, 236 Bangerter, Hans, 52, 61, 65, 67 Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC), 293 Belarus (Belorussia), 190–192, 202, 209, 211, 213, 214, 281, 304 Belgium, 54, 64, 82, 229, 248, 252 Belle Epoque, 57 Benelux Union, 3, 306 Benes, Edvard, 273, 274 Benfica Lisbon, 49, 65 Berlin Wall, 3, 7, 13, 43, 74, 79, 88, 90, 182, 277 Bernard, Vilem, 230, 234, 240 Bethell, Lord Nicholas, 77 Bettiza, Vincenzo, 76n13, 78 Bevan, Aneurin ‘Nye, 129, 132 Bevin, Ernest, 125 Bezençon, Marcel, 54, 55, 58, 62 Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), 293 Blue Streak missile, 21, 250, 252 Bossuat, Gérard, 69 Brand, Willy, 81 Brazil, 198 Bretton Woods, 31–32 Brexit, 1, 8, 138, 149, 247–267, 303

Brezhnev, Leonid, 185 Briand, Aristide, 3 Bridge-building, 15, 18, 319 Britain, 12, 21, 31, 54, 61, 64, 117, 118, 126, 136, 138, 149, 150, 225, 247–267 See also United Kingdom (UK) British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 54, 62, 65 British Commonwealth of Nations, 138, 236 British-American occupation zones in Germany (Bizone), 48 Brundtland, Gro Harlem, 154, 156n44 Brussels, 7, 7n21, 53, 68, 72, 74, 77, 78, 82, 83, 85–87, 98, 147, 150, 155, 158, 159, 226, 266, 300, 315–322 Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO), 3 Buffer zone, 273, 274, 285 Bulgaria, 173, 177, 179, 184, 222, 228, 274, 279, 281, 287, 306 Buset, Max, 126, 127 C Camps, Miriam, 34, 34n31 Casimir the Great, 272 Castle, Barbara, 71, 82 Catch-up strategy, 196 Central and Eastern European Coal and Steel Community, 225 Central Asia, 13, 107, 108, 184 Central Dispatching Organisation (CDO), 180 Central-East European Commission, 224, 225 Central European Federal Movement, 226

 INDEX 

Central European federation, 21, 221–246 Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), 279–281, 293, 296, 300, 301 Central European Initiative (CEI), 269, 280, 281, 293, 296, 308 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 226, 321 Central planning, 28, 175, 184, 233 Centre-periphery, 275 Chernobyl disaster, 85 Chile, 33 China, 76, 174n17, 198, 214 Chirac, Jacques, 284, 284n43 Christian Democratic Organization of America (Organización Demócrata Cristiana de América), 242 Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe (CDUCE), 222, 223, 231, 232, 236, 237, 241, 242, 244 Christian democrats, 21, 90, 232, 237, 242, 243, 245 Churchill, Winston, 3 Ciano, Galeazzo, 275 Cielens, Felix, 236 Clark, Ian, 250 Coal, 8, 33, 35–39, 41, 46, 183, 187 Coates, Ken, 88 Cohesion, 5, 158, 161, 162, 165, 166, 270, 286, 306, 307 Cold War, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25, 27–29, 33, 35, 36, 40, 42–45, 47, 53, 54, 57, 59, 62, 71–91, 128, 144, 152, 158, 173–178, 192, 221–246, 271, 275

325

end of, 16, 75, 78, 88, 90, 95–97, 113, 244, 246, 277, 291, 315, 317 post-, 7, 94, 97, 102, 108, 143, 146, 166, 292, 319, 320 Comecon, see Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) Comitology, 164 Committee of Liberal Exiles (CLE), 222, 223, 231, 233, 239–241, 244 Committee of the International Socialist Conference (Comisco), 128 Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), 72, 73 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 190 Communist International (Comintern), 121, 122, 125, 128 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 81, 125, 176, 181, 185 Concert of Europe, 1 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), 7, 96, 97, 103, 109, 113, 320 See also Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Congress of Europe, 224 Congress of European Unity, 242 Consensus, 59, 135, 153, 157, 159, 164, 165, 218, 308 Conservative Party, British, 263 Continental System, 1, 1n1 Cordon Sanitaire, 274 ‘Core Europe,’ 145, 221, 291, 294, 295, 320 Cot, Jean-Pierre, 88, 89 Cottey, Andrew, 17, 294, 295, 312

326 

INDEX

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA, also known as Comecon), 3, 15, 20, 35, 71, 72, 76–78, 80, 81, 81n28, 84, 85, 87, 169–190, 276, 279, 291, 295, 320 Bucharest Principle, 186 Committee for Cooperation in the Field of Planning, 184 Complex Programme, 177, 178, 185, 188 executive committee, 172, 175 first secretary of, 175, 176 Moscow Principle, 186, 187 secretariat, 175 session, 35, 174, 175, 179, 181, 184, 189 Sofia principle, 174 standing commission, 172, 175, 181 statute of, 175, 177 Council of Europe (CoE), 3, 8, 11, 17, 48, 221, 224, 227, 239, 294, 321 Council of Ministers of EEA, 164 of the EU, 192 of socialist countries, 176 Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), 293, 296 Courteix, Simone, 64 Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), 147, 165 Court of the Eurasian Economic Union, 210 Crahay, José, 61 Craxi, Bettino, 80, 81 Croatia, 94n2, 287, 306 Cross-border, 20, 142, 153, 180, 181, 186, 188, 292, 294, 298, 302, 303, 312

Cuban Missile Crisis, 182 Customs union, 146, 150, 159, 171n6, 192, 223, 273 Czechoslovakia, 43, 45, 77, 130, 173, 174, 177–181, 183, 184, 222, 225, 228, 274–276, 281, 300 Czech Republic, 3, 144n8, 269, 280, 285, 298, 300, 301, 310 D Dalton, Hugh, 122, 123, 128, 130, 136 Dangerfield, Martin, 17n59, 21, 99, 282, 293, 293n4, 301, 320 Dankert, Pieter, 82 Danube, 179, 235 Danubian Federation, 244 D’Arcy, Jean, 54 De Clercq, Willy, 77, 80, 82 De Gaulle, Charles, 8, 250, 252, 263 Decalogue, of the CSCE, 96 Defence, 130, 204, 205, 225, 235, 236, 250, 259, 260, 286, 297, 300, 309–312, 311n51 Defence cooperation, 21, 292, 297, 298, 300, 309–312 Delors, Jacques, 77, 145, 149–159, 163 Democracy, 3, 89–91, 94, 96, 110–113, 122, 123, 133, 143, 159, 242, 245, 287–290 Democratisation, 74, 89, 93, 95, 97, 101, 102, 105, 108–110, 112, 114, 277, 278, 281, 285, 289, 304 Denmark, 32, 64, 130, 150 De-Stalinisation, 240 Developing and transitional country, 200–202

 INDEX 

Development model, 272, 276, 289, 290 Dezhina, Irina, 204, 206, 207 Diamond, Jack, 253 Dido, Mario, 82 Diesen, Glenn, 197 Dimitrov, Georgi Mihov, 225, 233, 238, 239 Dimmock, Peter, 62, 67 Dinkelspiel, Ulf, 148n18, 155, 157 Dissident, 242, 276, 277n22 Division of labour, 44, 171, 185, 198, 199, 215–217 Dragneva, Rilka, 195 Druzhba, crude oil pipeline, 20, 181–184, 188 Dwan, Renata, 292 E Early Bird satellite, 253 Eastern bloc, 3, 7, 17, 20, 43, 50n2, 51, 53, 56, 62, 73, 76–78, 85–87, 96, 97, 113, 144, 149, 157, 169–190, 240, 269, 275, 277, 279 Eastern Neighbourhood, 281, 305 Eastern Partnership (EaP), 289 of the EU, 281, 286, 305 of V4, 285, 304 East Germany, 317 See also German Democratic Republic (GDR) East-West, 16, 19, 77, 185n64, 319 division between, 13, 18, 50, 56, 74, 293, 317 relations between, 43, 239 trade, 36, 44, 45

327

Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), 142, 143 Economic cooperation, 3, 18, 25–27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 41, 44, 46, 47, 68, 135, 137, 174, 197, 238, 274 Economic statecraft, 197, 198 Egypt, 305, 307 Émigrés (emigrants), 21, 221–228, 230–232, 239–242, 244–246 Energopol, 184 Energy, 17, 46, 101, 103, 104, 106, 162, 169–190, 213, 216, 243, 247, 250n10, 276n18, 292 infrastructure, 20, 172, 186, 188–190 as weapon, 190 Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC), 94, 96, 106–110, 114 E-Road system, 43 Estonia, 3, 222 Ethiopia, 32 Eurasia, 197, 198, 200 Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), 3, 13, 190–218, 291, 320 common industrial and innovation policy, 20, 194 Eurasian Economic Commission (EUREC), 192, 192n8, 202, 203, 209–212, 214, 215 Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), 192 Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, 193, 210, 212 Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, 192, 193, 210 Treaty, 193n11, 210 Eurasian technology platform (ETP), 191–218 Europa rocket, 251

328 

INDEX

Europe, 1, 6, 6n15, 6n16, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17–19, 26, 29, 30, 32, 35, 40–44, 51, 53, 56, 57, 68, 88, 90, 94, 97, 102, 113, 121, 126, 130, 143, 145, 146, 149, 158, 167, 197, 221–246, 249, 255, 257, 275, 283, 287, 291–312, 317, 319, 322 Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), 7, 90, 152, 169, 224, 227–229, 244, 245, 320 Central Europe, 14, 217, 235–237, 241, 274, 283, 289, 293, 305, 320 East Central Europe (ECE), 221, 269–290, 317 Eastern Europe, 13, 13n43, 14, 19, 31, 50, 61, 72, 76, 77, 85, 89, 91, 108, 118, 126, 169–174, 178, 181, 186, 189, 190, 217, 223, 224, 228, 229, 234, 240, 243–245, 259, 293, 316 Northern Europe, 293 South Eastern Europe, 101, 102, 107, 108, 108n57 Western Europe, 3, 11, 14, 19, 20, 27, 31, 34–37, 47, 72, 84, 91, 118, 135, 136, 142, 157, 169, 172, 173, 176, 179, 179n38, 183, 223, 224, 227, 228, 231, 236, 238–240, 243, 245, 251, 253, 256, 258–260, 263, 266, 270, 277, 279, 316, 321 European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), 4, 243, 247 European Broadcasting Union (EBU), 3, 19, 50–68, 320 Official Bulletin, 52, 52n12, 55, 67 Official Review, 52 programme commission, 62, 65 European Champions Clubs’ Cup (ECCC), 19, 49–51, 53, 59–61, 63–67

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), 4, 8, 18, 20, 25, 27, 28, 36–40, 45–47, 75, 117, 118, 120, 133, 137, 221–223, 225, 229, 230, 234, 238, 240, 246, 316 High Authority of, 8, 38, 39 European Coal Organisation (ECO), 37 European Community (EC), 6, 9–12, 15, 20, 26, 27, 47, 48, 57, 71, 72, 74–82, 81n28, 84–87, 86n51, 89–91, 142, 144, 145, 148n19, 149, 149n20, 151–153, 155–160, 162, 163, 165–167, 277, 278, 315, 317–321 common commercial policy, 150 four freedoms, 141 ministerial conference, 161 ‘the Six,’ 4, 7, 18 See also European Economic Community (EEC); European Union (EU) European Cup for Nations, 63 European Cup Winners’ Cup (ECWC), 63, 66, 67 European Defence Agency (EDA), 311 European Defence Community (EDC), 316 European Economic Area (EEA), 20, 141–167, 221, 291, 319, 320 Consultative Committee for Economic and Social Affairs, 165 Court, 165 Joint Committee on, 165 Parliamentary Committee, 165 Surveillance Authority, 163, 165 European Economic Community (EEC), 4, 8, 12, 14, 21, 27, 46, 47, 50, 68, 117, 118, 120, 130, 132, 133, 137, 138, 170, 172n12, 176, 178, 192n8, 243, 247, 250–252, 257, 267, 315 See also European Community (EC); European Union (EU)

 INDEX 

European economic space (EES), 150, 150n21, 151n25, 158 See also European Economic Area (EEA) European Free Trade Association (EFTA), 20, 28, 77, 129, 146, 148–155, 157–166, 176, 250, 279, 291 Consultative Committee, 150n22, 151n23, 151n25, 162 Council, 161 Court, 147, 156, 165 Secretariat, 150, 150n22, 153n27, 156 European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), 89 Europeanisation, 89, 91, 94n2, 95–100, 106, 108, 109, 112–114, 120, 121, 294, 319 European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), 21, 247–267 Council, 254, 258, 260 Initial Programme, 262 European Movement (EM), 50, 224, 233 European Parliament (EP), 4, 8, 19, 71–82, 84–91, 135, 153, 287, 288, 320 Bureau, 79, 84, 86, 88 own-initiative report, 75, 87 Political Affairs Committee, 74–77, 84 European Payments Union, 233 European People’s Party (EPP), of the European Parliament, 75, 85, 89 Bureau, 85 European Political Community, 316 European Recovery Program, 238 European Space Agency (ESA), 9, 266, 267 European studies, field of, 10, 315 European Union (EU), 3, 6, 11, 13n43, 17, 26, 68, 72, 74, 76,

329

90, 94, 118, 141, 169, 192, 194, 235, 240, 246, 262–267, 269, 282–289, 291, 295, 298–301, 306, 315 Commission, 4, 20, 77, 86, 144, 145, 147, 148n18, 150, 153, 283, 289 Copenhagen declaration 1993, 283 Copenhagen summit 1993, 279, 280 enlargement, 7, 13, 143, 149, 152, 285, 295 European Council, 8, 142, 299, 306n39 four freedoms, 141, 146, 152 ‘golden standard,’ 12, 14, 196, 320 integration, 1–22, 25–28, 34–37, 40, 46–48, 69, 88, 90, 93, 95–100, 118, 128, 132–134, 138, 139, 141, 147, 149, 156, 169, 171, 190, 222, 229–231, 238, 247, 259, 263, 277–282, 290–292, 294–298, 312, 315–322 Luxemburg summit 1997, 283 Maastricht summit 1991, 145, 166 Maastricht Treaty, 19, 72 macro-regional strategy, 296 model, 6, 10, 15, 47, 149, 192, 193, 198, 202, 207 Prague summit 2009, 286 ‘provincialisation’ of, 10, 11, 99, 169, 202, 318 Strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Region, 296 Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, 296 ‘success story,’ 6, 28 Treaty of Amsterdam, 146 Treaty of Nice, 146 Treaty of Rome, 8, 46, 165, 243, 319 See also European Community (EC); European Economic Community (EEC))

330 

INDEX

EUROP-pool, 42 Euroscepticism, 134 Eurosclerosis, 76 Eurovision network, 19, 50, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67 Eurovision programme commission, 55 Eurovision Song Contest, 50, 60 Exile parties, 237, 244 Ezra, Derek, 38 F Faddeev, Nikolai, 175 Falcone, Paolo, 74, 82, 83 Fascism, 122–124 Federal Archive Berlin (BArch), 172 Federalism, 31, 118, 119, 133–137, 206, 221, 226, 227, 236, 237, 242, 266, 267, 316, 320 Federal Republic of Germany, 251 See also West Germany Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), 51, 56, 56n24, 58, 61, 320 Feyenoord Rotterdam, 65 Fico, Robert, 284 Finland, 64, 142, 147, 148n18, 148n19, 149n20, 150, 151n25, 154n33, 155, 156, 159, 161, 166, 174n17, 274 First World War, 2, 46, 55, 57, 122, 130, 273, 290 Five-year plan, 174 Florescu, Mihai, 181 Football, 50 France, 2, 4n9, 37, 43, 54, 60, 68, 122, 130, 131, 133, 136, 229, 248, 251–253, 266, 267, 273, 274, 283, 284, 316 Frank, Robert, 5, 53, 71, 230 Freedom House, 287

Free Europe Committee (FEC), 226, 227, 242 French Guyana, 266 French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO), 126, 131, 132 G Gaitskell, Hugh, 133, 136, 137 Gaullists, 131 Gazprom, 205 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich, 159 Georgia, 12, 304 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 77, 174, 177, 179, 181–184 See also East Germany German Social Democratic Party (SPD), 71, 79, 87, 88, 90, 117, 131, 137 Gidroproekt, 179 Gilbert, Mark, 26 Gillies, William, 124, 125, 128, 130 Gillingham, John, 37 Girault, René, 5 Glemza, Jonas, 236 Glinne, Ernest, 82 Globalisation, 265 González, Felipe, 81 Good governance, 111, 114, 304 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 71, 76, 80–83, 87, 189 Gosplan, 174, 175 Greater Eurasia, 197 Gresch, Norbert, 82 Gross domestic product (GDP), 194, 211, 266, 311 H Habsburg Empire, 272, 273, 281 Hague, The, 224 Hänsch, Klaus, 77, 79, 86–88 Harmel, Pierre, 255–257

 INDEX 

Hartmann-Charguéraud, Paul, 41 Havel, Vaclav, 278 Hayes, Eric, 148n18, 148n19, 156, 157, 167 Healey, Denis, 127, 131, 132, 136 Helsinki process, 276 Henderson, Arthur, 122, 130 Heseltine, Michael, 267 Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU), 74 Hitler, Adolf, 122, 275 Hoffman, Paul, 34, 35 Hollande, François, 298 Horvath, Jozsef Kozi, 231, 232 Hugo, Victor, 2 Hull, Cordell, 29 Human rights, 3, 73, 86, 96–100, 110, 113 Hungary, 3, 144n8, 159, 173, 178, 179, 181, 183, 184, 222, 225, 240, 242, 243, 269, 274–276, 278, 280, 281, 284, 288, 298, 310, 311 Hyperglobalisation, 196n19, 217 I Iceland, 146, 147, 150, 155, 162, 165–167 Identity, 10, 50, 119, 143, 277, 282, 300–302, 308, 319 Imlay, Talbot, 121, 123, 138 In-betweenness, 271, 274, 277 India, 198, 266 Industry, 38, 54, 108, 166, 173, 177, 181, 199, 202–204, 210, 211, 213–215, 230, 260, 276, 309, 310 cooperation between, 205 industrialisation, 178, 212, 216–218, 225 policy for, 191–218, 255

331

Infrastructure, 8n22, 20, 42, 47, 172, 174, 179, 181, 186, 188–190, 199, 200, 210, 215, 263, 281 Inland Transport Committee (ITC), 42 Innovation, 10, 20, 193, 194, 203–206, 210, 316, 321 Integration, 25–48, 51, 72, 76, 87, 88, 93–114, 137, 144, 152, 160, 161, 163, 167, 169–192, 195, 196, 204, 210, 211, 221, 234, 236, 240, 243–246, 269–291, 317–319, 321 ‘beyond Brussels,’ 1–22, 47, 69, 194, 197, 201, 292 CMEA integration, 16, 20, 276 differentiated integration, 145, 145–146n12, 146 economic integration, 14–16, 20, 27, 35, 133, 141, 150, 151, 170–172, 185–186, 189, 192, 200, 209, 215–217, 279, 296, 297, 304, 316 EU integration, 1–22, 25–28, 34–37, 40, 46–48, 69, 88, 90, 93, 95–100, 118, 128, 132–134, 138, 139, 141, 147, 149, 156, 169, 171, 190, 222, 229–231, 238, 247, 259, 263, 277–282, 290–292, 294–298, 312, 315–322 Eurasian integration, 193, 194, 197–202, 207, 212, 218 European integration, 25, 26, 36, 48, 88, 93, 95, 118, 132–134, 138, 139, 141, 147, 149, 156, 169, 171, 190, 229–231, 247, 277–282, 290–292, 294–298, 312, 315–322 Europe of ‘concentric circles,’ 145, 155–157, 166 Europe of Olympic rings, 145

332 

INDEX

Integration (Cont.) hidden integration, 8n22, 16, 20, 40–43, 47, 172, 186, 189 history of European integration, 28, 69, 141, 190 holding-together integration, 199 multispeed Europe, 146 regional integration, 14, 17, 19, 112, 114, 142, 169–190, 197, 202 re-integration, 200 Socialist Economic Integration (SEI), 171, 185, 188 subregional integration, 14, 269–290, 320 West(ern) European integration, 171, 230, 238, 259 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, 63 Intergovernmentalism, 8, 16, 27, 28, 31, 36, 39, 40, 46, 47, 142, 164, 171, 178, 185, 229, 255, 290, 292, 294, 318 Intergovernmental organisation (IGO), 39, 40, 294 Intermarium, 274 International Agrarian Bureau, 228 International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR), 37 International Bank for Economic Cooperation, 176 International Broadcasting Union (IBU), 53, 62, 65, 65n53 International Committee of League, 63 International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, 223 International Investment Bank, 185 International Labour Office, 126 International organisation (IO), 5, 10, 11, 17, 18, 25, 27, 28, 39, 47, 48, 94, 100, 102–104, 106, 125, 138, 169, 173, 189, 194, 231, 289, 319, 320

International Peasant Union (IPU), 222, 223, 225, 228–230, 233, 234, 238, 241, 242, 244, 245 Monthly Bulletin, 238 International Road Federation (IRF), 42 Interparliamentary delegation (IPD), 77, 84–86, 88 Ireland, 32 Iron Curtain, 3, 7, 16, 18, 44, 47, 50, 56, 66, 72, 82, 97, 224, 227, 230, 231, 239–241, 246 Israel, 307 Italy, 32, 40, 41, 54, 80, 123, 130, 131, 133, 229, 248, 251, 275, 280, 281, 289 J Jacob, Ian, 55 Japan, 305, 307 Jászi, Oszkár, 273 Jay, Douglas, 136 Jeenbekov, Sooronbay, 212 Johnson administration, 259 Joint (economic) planning, 173, 174, 177, 188, 230, 244 Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 176 Jordan, 307 Journal de l’Europe, 64 K Kaarlehto, Paavo, 146–147 Kaiser, Wolfram, 10n32, 11 Kansikas, Suvi, 78 Kazakhstan, 191, 192, 193n13, 202, 209, 213, 214 ‘Kerneuropa,’ 145 Keynes, John Maynard, 3 Khrushchev, Nikita, 176, 177, 181, 188

 INDEX 

Kindleberger, Charles, 31 King Carl Robert, 272 King John Luxemburg, 272 Klaus, Vaclav, 10, 72n2, 280, 282 Klepsch, Egon, 85, 88, 89 Kohl, Helmut, 145 Kořan, Michal, 300 Korean War, 44 Kosovo, 94n2, 101 Kossuth, Lajos, 273 Kremlin, 77, 81, 276 Kroměříž Declaration, of Visegrad, 301 Kunicki, Tadeusz, 240–241 Kuosmanen, Antti, 155 Kyrgyzstan, 191, 192, 214, 215 L Labour and Socialist International (LSI), 121–125, 127, 135 Labour Party, 122, 125, 128–133, 135, 137–139, 253 annual conference of, 124, 134 Labour’s Call, 243 Tribune, 127 Lagendijk, Vincent, 45, 55 Lamers, Karl, 145, 145n12 Lane, David, 198 Larock, Victor, 128 Latvia, 3, 222 League of Nations, 122, 139, 223, 319 Leclerc, Marcel, 60 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 2 Lenin, Vladimir, 179 Liberal International (LI), 231, 239, 240 Lie, Haakon, 132 Lie, Trygve, 32 Liechtenstein, 146, 147, 166, 167 Liikanen, Erkki, 166–167 Lisbon, 43, 49, 65

333

Lithuania, 3, 222 Little Entente, 274 Low politics, 292, 294, 316 Luxembourg, 4n9, 7n21, 38, 54, 64, 229, 251 Luxembourg declaration, 150n21, 150n22 Luxembourg process, 150–153, 160 M MacDonald, Ramsay M., 121 Macmillan, Harold, 224, 249, 250, 252, 264, 265 Macron, Emmanuel, 284 Major, John, 145 Manchester United, 49 Marketisation, 277 Market socialism, 276 Marots maritime satellite, 267 Marshall Aid, 34, 128, 238 Marshall Plan, 25, 27, 34, 43, 133, 134, 173, 228 Masaryk, Jan, 43, 43n60, 273 Masaryk, Thomas Garrigue, 273 Match of the Day, 65 May, Theresa, 265 McGovern, Cecil, 54 Meciar, Vladimir, 280, 282, 282n36 Mediterranean, 17, 33, 293 Mercosur, 200 Merkel, Angela, 298 Meters, Michael, 145 Meyer, Jean-Christophe, 52 Middle East, 32, 307 Migration crisis, 270, 288, 307, 312 Mihkelson, Johannes, 236 Milward, Alan, 36, 37, 120, 317 Minority rights, 101 Mir electricity grid, 20, 179 Misa, Thomas J., 8n22, 172, 189 Mitrany, David, 321 Mittag, Jürgen, 52

334 

INDEX

Mitterrand, Francois, 144 Mock, Alois, 161 Modernisation, 37, 188, 201, 205, 209, 216, 233 Moldova, 281, 304 Mollet, Guy, 126, 137, 138 Molotov, Vyacheslav, 173 Mondovision, 64 Monetary union, 233 Monnet, Jean, 3, 6, 8, 39, 50 Mulley, Fred, 254, 256–258, 260, 261, 264 Munich crisis of 1938, 123 Myrdal, Gunnar, 18, 28, 33, 35, 36, 44–46 N Napoleon I, 2 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 255 National interest, 4, 119, 126, 175n24, 266, 267, 271, 273, 290, 308 Nationalism, 55, 131, 226, 237, 245, 248, 271, 273, 285 Nazi regime, 251 Nazi rule, 224 Neo-functionalism, 316 Neporozhniy, Piotr, 180 Netherlands, 4n9, 54, 64, 130, 229, 248, 252, 302n27 Neuman, Marek, 285 Neutrality, 100, 155, 161 neutral countries, 51 neutralised territory, 236 zones, 235 New Central Europe, 273 New York, 227, 228, 231 New York Times, 40 Nieland, Jörg-Uwe, 52 Non-governmental organisation (NGO), 42, 299

Non-state actor, 4, 9 Nordic Council, 3, 305, 306, 308 Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8), 305 Norm, 19, 29, 40, 47, 55, 89, 94, 96–99, 105, 109, 112–114, 143, 151, 201, 202, 215, 217, 319 Normative power, 89, 143 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 3, 11, 17, 101, 107n49, 143, 182, 200, 282–284, 286, 294–301, 311, 316–318, 321 Northern Africa, 32 Norway, 41, 146, 147, 150, 156n44, 157, 159, 162, 165, 166, 305n37 Nouvelles Équipes internationales (NEI), 232, 242 Nuclear power plant (NPP), 180, 181 O Obama, Barack, 265 Ojanen, Hanna, 155 Open Society Archives, 303 Orbán, Viktor, 288, 289 Organisation for Cooperation of Railways, 176 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 11, 17, 26, 27, 187, 255 Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), 3, 11, 17, 18, 25–28, 34–39, 43, 45, 47, 128, 134–136, 238 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 3, 19, 28, 93–114, 294, 295, 320 Paris Charter for New Europe, 97 Permanent Council, 102 See also Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe Ostpolitik, 75, 81, 85, 89, 91 Oudenaren, John Van, 78 Owen, David, 32

 INDEX 

P Paderewsky, Ignacy Jan, 273 Pakštas, Kazys, 236 Palme, Olof, 81 Pan-European, 7n20, 9, 17, 18, 26, 28, 43, 47, 50, 59, 90, 110–113, 144, 228, 235, 236, 241, 242, 294, 295, 319 Pan-European Movement, 2 Pan-Germanism, 273–274 Pan-Slavism, 273 Parliamentary Group, 83 Partizan Belgrade, 59 Party networks, 5, 19, 72 Patel, Kiran Klaus, 10–12, 10n32, 51, 318 Pavlov, Aleksandr, 175 Peacebuilding, 94, 95, 105, 108–110, 297 Pelletier, Robert, 166 Penn, William, 2 Perestroika, 75–79 Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), 311 Peru, 33 Philadelphia Declaration, of the Free Europe Committee, 226 Philip, André, 138, 139 Phillips, Morgan, 127, 128, 134 Planned economy, 16, 170–172, 175, 178 Planning, 16, 28, 33, 77, 88, 106, 107, 112, 118, 127, 132, 133, 144–146, 145n8, 155, 156, 173–175, 177, 179–182, 184, 185, 187, 188, 192, 204, 213, 218, 221–246, 248, 264, 271, 277, 299, 309, 310, 316 Poland, 3, 30, 31, 77, 159, 173, 174, 179, 181–184, 222, 225, 228, 269, 273–276, 278, 280, 281, 284, 285, 288, 298, 310, 311 Polaris nuclear submarine system, 249

335

Pologne-Hongrois Action pour la Reconstruction Economic (PHARE), 278 Porter, Paul, 34 Portugal, 65, 150 Post-Cold War, 7, 94, 97, 102, 108, 143, 143n3, 146, 166, 292, 295, 319, 320 Post-communist, 269, 271, 291–312 Post-socialist, 143 Post-Soviet, 12, 191, 200, 202, 203, 205, 285 Prague Spring, 178 Price, John, 125 Prill, Norbert J., 145 Prussia, 2 Q Quadripartite Agreement (1971), 86 R Rácz, Andras, 308 Raczyński, Edward, 225 Radio Free Europe, 242 Radio Prague, 302 Rainio-Niemi, Johanna, 100 Rambouillet, 252 Rapone, Leonardo, 123 Rapprochement, 71–91, 282 Real Madrid, 59, 60 Reform communism, 276 Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), 293 Regionalism, 14, 14n46, 17, 18, 33, 47, 151, 198 See also Subregionalism Re-industrialisation, 205 Reisch, Georg, 163 Research and development (R&D), 192, 200, 203–205, 217, 251, 302

336 

INDEX

Retinger, Józef, 224 Risse, Thomas, 87 Rocketry, 251 Roll, Eric, 321 Rollman, Tony, 38–40 Romania, 173, 177, 179, 180, 184, 188, 222, 274, 275, 279, 281, 287, 306 Room for manoeuvre, 170 Rosatom, 205 Rostow, Walt Whitman, 30, 31, 262 Rothley, Willy, 79, 81, 81n31, 82, 84 Rous, Stanley, 61, 63 Ruhr, 37, 131 Rule of law, 108, 113, 304 Rumsfeld, Donald, 283, 284 Russian Academy of Sciences, 205 Russian Federation (Russia), 280 Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE), 172 Russian technology platforms (RTP), 192, 203, 204, 206, 207, 209, 212, 215 Rykin, Viktor, 81, 81n31, 82 S Saarland, 131 Saby, Henry, 82 Sakwa, Richard, 294 Salter, Arthur, 2 Sarkozy, Nicholas, 284 Scandinavia, 42 Schäuble, Wolfgang, 145 Schot, Johan, 8n22, 172, 189 Schumacher, Kurt, 137 Schuman, Robert, 6, 37 Schuman Declaration, 238 Schuman Plan, 37–39, 118, 134, 137, 223 Scientific and technological cooperation, 203, 209 Second International, 121, 128

Second World War, 3, 27, 30, 48, 50, 53, 54, 56n24, 125, 138, 173, 223, 228, 232, 275, 315 Security, 15, 17, 37, 38, 86, 87, 93–114, 142, 143, 244, 272, 274, 276, 282, 285, 286, 294, 297, 300, 301, 310, 316, 321 collective security, 236, 273 comprehensive security, 105, 113 energy security, 101 environmental security, 93–114 Self-determination, 232 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 83 Shot, Johan, 55 Sidorsky, Sergei, 210, 211 Sieniewicz, Konrad, 232 Single currency, 142 Single Economic Space (SES), 202, 203 Single European Act (SEA), 141, 149, 150, 151n23, 151n25, 152, 153, 153n27, 160 Single market, 35, 100, 141, 143, 146, 147, 149, 152, 154–156, 158–160, 162, 166, 191, 280, 286 Siotis, Jean, 45 Skybolt missile, 249 Slovakia, 3, 269, 280, 298, 300, 310, 311 Slovenia, 94n2, 279, 285, 287, 289, 305, 306, 308 Sobotka, Bohuslav, 284 Social democrats, 21, 129, 130, 240 Socialisation, 120, 121, 137–139, 308 Socialist Group of the European Parliament (EP), 19, 71, 79, 86 Secretariat, 74 Socialist Information and Liaison Office (SILO), 127 Socialist International (SI), 19, 72, 81, 82, 88, 118, 122, 125–129, 134, 135, 171, 229, 240, 244, 320

 INDEX 

Socialist internationalism, 118, 121, 129, 134–136, 139, 244 Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe (SUCEE), 222, 223, 229, 230, 233–236, 240, 241, 243–245 South America, 33 South Korea, 307 Sovereignty, 15, 26, 37, 39, 117–139, 147, 177, 188, 192n6, 193, 207, 217, 237, 243, 265, 271, 275, 288–290, 295, 317 Soviet Union (USSR), 19, 27, 31, 34, 44, 56, 71–74, 76–79, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 125, 126, 151, 155, 172, 173, 175–184, 186, 189, 199, 205, 228, 239, 249, 255, 259, 274, 293, 316, 317, 321 domination of, 232, 244 embassy system, 174 legacy, 200, 203 Ministry of Foreign Trade, 185 satellites, 3, 174, 187, 222 Soviet Institute for America and Canada, 83 Sovietisation, 234 Soyuz gas pipeline, 184 Spacelab, 267 Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), 81 Specialisation, 171, 175–178 Speich Chassé, Daniel, 48 Spitzenkandidat, 289 Stability, 93–95, 103, 105, 106, 109, 112–114, 160, 201, 212, 278, 285, 297 Stalin, Joseph, 45, 47, 56, 174, 239, 246 Stanczyk, Jan, 30 Standardisation, 40 State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), 172

337

State Commission for Electrification of Russia (GOELRO), 179 State-owned enterprise (SOE), 205, 209, 215, 216 Stoltenberg, Gerhard, 250, 254–256 Strážay, Tomáš, 303, 307 Subregionalism, 17, 17n59, 271, 292, 293n3, 294–298, 309 cooperation, 294, 298 federation, 245 grouping, 223, 291–312 organisation, 33–40, 99, 269, 277–282, 290, 291n1, 292, 294, 297, 299, 312 unity, 3, 271, 287 See also Regionalism Suez, 45, 265 Super Gosplan, 176, 177, 188 Supranationalism, 4n11, 9, 12, 15, 20, 27, 36, 39, 94, 118, 132–134, 136, 137, 139, 142, 145, 146, 164, 167, 175, 177, 188, 192, 203, 206, 207, 216, 237, 271, 299, 317, 321 Supreme Soviet, 83, 84, 86–88 Parliamentary Group, 83 Sweden, 32, 64, 130, 142, 147, 148n18, 150, 155, 159, 162, 166, 302n27 Switzerland, 51, 54, 56, 60, 64, 146, 150, 159, 162, 165, 166, 236, 302n27 Sychev, Vyacheslav, 76, 80, 81, 85, 175 T Tajikistan, 192 Tarabrine, Dmitri, 82 Taylor, A.J.P., 144, 144n5

338 

INDEX

Technology, 8n22, 16, 18n62, 21, 40, 47, 54, 108, 172, 186, 187, 200, 205, 210, 214, 215, 232, 247, 248, 251, 253, 255, 263, 292 Technology gap, 259 Technology platform (TP), 20, 191–218 Technonationalism, 251 Telecommunications satellite (comsat), 254, 256 Télé-Magazine, 50n1, 52, 65 Teleology, 13, 14, 19, 26, 72, 196, 202, 315 Temporary Sub-Commission on Devastated Areas, 30 Tesemma, Getahoun, 32 ‘Third Europe,’ 275–277 Thommen, Ernst, 57 Thorneycroft, Peter, 252, 264 Trade liberalisation, 36, 47, 150, 153, 160 Transferable rouble, 185n65, 187 Transnational, 5, 9, 11, 16, 17, 20, 51, 55, 58, 72, 82, 88, 91, 118–121, 139, 171, 172, 179, 183, 188, 228, 271, 294 network, 72, 88, 91, 119–121, 139 Transport, 33, 36, 38, 40–42, 181, 182, 186, 213, 216, 292 Transports Internationaux Routiers (TIR), 42 Trimarium, 287 Truman Doctrine, 173 Turkey, 12, 106, 157 Twigge, Stephen, 249 U Ukraine, 12, 100, 181, 274, 281, 304 UK–US ‘special relationship, 264 Unanimity, 121, 124, 126, 136, 177, 188, 299n18

Union for the Coordination of Production and Transmission of Electricity (UCPTE), 179 Union of Eastern European Agrarian Parties, 228 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), 19, 49–53, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61n41, 62, 63, 66–69, 68n60, 320 General Assembly, 52, 58, 61 General Secretary, 61 president of, 64 propaganda commission, 64, 65, 65n53 television commission, 64 United Electricity Network, of the socialist bloc, 176 United Kingdom (UK), 1, 250–252, 258, 260, 261, 264, 265, 267, 305 Cabinet (also Government), 250, 254, 258–262, 264, 265 Foreign Office, 254, 260 Joint Chiefs of Staff, 263 Parliament, 265 Treasury, 263 Whitehall, 254, 265 United Nations (UN), 10, 25, 27, 33–36, 39, 42, 47, 48, 128, 227, 244, 318 Charter, 32 Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 48 Development Programme (UNDP), 106 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 30, 32 Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), 33 Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (UNECAFE), 30–33

 INDEX 

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLA), 33 Economic Commission for Western Asia (UNECWA), 33 Environment Programme (UNEP), 106 general assembly, 30–32 Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), 30 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), 18, 25–48, 108, 110 Coal Committee, 37, 38 commission of, 3, 33, 34, 40, 106, 320 Secretariat, 36, 38–42, 44 United States (US), 27, 29, 30, 34, 76, 96, 101, 151, 226, 227, 236, 249, 250, 253–265, 283, 302n27, 307, 316, 318, 321 Congress, 34 Department of State, 29 ‘United States of Europe,’ 34, 232, 241, 243 Ustyuzhanina, Elena, 198, 217 Uzbekistan, 192 V Value chain, 20, 198–201, 216, 217 Values, 6, 18, 19, 21, 26, 68, 73, 94, 97–99, 102, 105, 113, 114, 131, 143, 197–201, 216, 217, 227, 232, 237, 287, 306, 319, 320 Van der goes van Naters, Marinus, 137, 138 V-bomber, 249 Venezuela, 33, 198 Verheugen, Günter, 283 Vinck, Francois, 38

339

Visegrad Group (V4 or VG), 3, 14, 21, 269–271, 278–290, 292, 293, 296–312, 320 International Visegrad Fund (IVF), 292, 298–303, 302n27 V4 European Union Battlegroup (V4EUBG), 309, 310 Visegrad Eastern Partnership (the V4EaP), 304 Visegrad Plus (V4+), 292, 298, 305–308 Vogel, Hans-Jochen, 87 Von Braun, Wernher, 251 Von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard, 2 W Walesa, Lech, 278 Warsaw Pact, 3, 17, 169, 170n5, 276, 321 Weill, Pierre Édouard, 68 Welles, Sumner, 29 Wembley Stadium, 50 West Berlin, 86, 86n51 Western Balkans, 94–96, 94n2, 101–103, 105, 106, 108, 110–113, 285, 288, 289, 304, 305 Western bloc, 27, 31, 51, 53 Western European Union (WEU), 3, 17, 321 West Germany, 4n9, 37, 60, 159, 182, 229, 262, 266, 267, 316 Wehrmacht, 33, 130 See also Federal Republic of Germany Wiederkehr, Gustave, 64 Wilson, Harold, 253 Wolczuk, Kataryna, 195 World Bank, 195

340 

INDEX

World Cup, 51, 52, 56, 58 World Trade Organization (WTO), 201 Y Yugoslavia, 101, 174n17, 222, 228, 274, 275, 281, 293

Z Zagladin, Vadim, 82, 84 Zeman, Milos, 301 Zero-sum game, 199, 283 Zinoviev Letter, 122 Zuckerman, Sir Solly, 259, 264 Zymantas, Stasys, 241